This is the last Carnival in North Petherton that I managed to attend before the end of the season. The plan here was to aim and shoot a range of night time portraits and environmental shots using the carnival carts as a background. As I arrived, there was a lot of setting up activity which proved very good to shoot.

Continuing to explore narrative, I have started to read through some film theory as it has been recognized as being able to utilize narrative much more effectively than photography. The key points from the book are the need to identify the cause and effect of the narrative that I am aiming to portray. 

“A narrative does not consist of a random series of events, but a series of events related to one another in terms of cause and effect”

(Buckland, n.d.) ^​*​

In film, the narrative is also categorized into three stages, as outlined by theorist Tzvetan Todorov (Buckland, n.d.) ​*​ :

• A state of Equilibrium
• The disruption of this equilibrium by an event
• The successful attempt to restore the equilibrium 

Where the transition between the stages is referred to the narrative turning point and key events can change the direction of the narrative action.

(Buckland, n.d.)

There is also omniscient narration where the camera will be be removed completely and be controlled by someone outside of the narrative, in the case of film this is the director, however in photography this could well be the photographer.

In order to further this exploration, I think it would be important to identify whether this form of narrative is used within photography, and the photo project. I will continue my research by looking at a range of photography books. Further to this visual study, I feel it is vital to better understand the semiotic theory that underpins the narrative of a photographic narrative. To that end, I intend to read ‘Image, Music, Text’ (Barthes, 1990)^​†​ and later ‘Mythologies’ (Barthes et al., 2009)^​‡​ by Roland Barthes that look at this in more depth.

Narrative in art is defined as a sequence of related events, and historically where narrative is depicted in art, the reader of the image is to have assumed knowledge of the narrative present (Tate, 2019).^​§​ I feel that a narrative in the literary sense does not always apply to a series of photographs, and also by sequencing images in a chronological fashion may reduce the impact of how some of them may be read. Aesthetic placement of the images may function well with photography, however may reduce the effect of the overall narrative by considering the images only for their technical and aesthetic qualities rather than the context that they provide, as discussed in the essay ‘Context as a Determinant of Photographic Meaning’ (Walker, 1997)^​¶​ where this can have a huge impact on the way images are read together. In film, this is idea is supported by ‘The Kuleshov Effect’ explores by theorist Lev Kuleshov who analysed the effects of the juxtaposition of film shots and how they are put together (Fig. 1) will have an impact on how the reader will attach meaning and emotion (Elementsofcinema.com, 2019).^​#​

In order to create an effective narrative of my work, I will need to carefully consider the juxtaposition of my images in terms of the connotated coding that they represent when placed together. This will be more than merely the aesthetics and creating a pleasing juxtaposition and sequencing of events. The narrative in this case becomes an idea, or overall emotive presence of the work and how it is being presented to the reader.

Looking at Photobooks

At the recent Jack Latham talk and exhibition of his work ‘Sugar Paper Theories,’ (Latham, 2016)^​**​ held at the Royal Photographic Society, Curator Dr Mark Rawlinson (Fig. 3) highlighted the difference between the images and placement of them in the exhibition from the book and how there is a tendency to read through a book in a linear way. The exhibitions role was to change the narrative of the work in order to keep you as the reader guessing and exploring the work in the search for ‘Clues’ (Rawlinson, 2019).^​††​

Pieter Hugo – Kin

Hugo provides a deeply coded journey through his homeland in the book ‘Kin’ (Hugo, 2015)^​‡‡​ all of the images are very emotive and challenge you to consider the colonial gaze through the use of nudes and classic portraits throughout this book. Hugo writes of South Africa being a complex and problematic country and his own exploration has created more questions than it answers. I believe that the juxtaposition of the images within the book really start to challenge you and underpin this notion. The use of different page sizes shows a kind of hierarchy to the placement of the portraits over other elements of Hugo’s work in the way they partially obscure the view of the image underneath (Fig. 4), forcing you to consider the first image before moving forward. This is a kind of juxtaposition that prioritises one image over another.

Hugo’s images in Kin do not form a chronological account of this story, but support my point of the overall meaning in the work.

Matt Henry – Short Stories

A more overt use of narrative, even with the title relating to the way the reader is supposed to look at this work is Matt Henry’s ‘Short Stories’ (Fig. 6) which is a series of related tableaux images on the theme of Nixon era America. Each short set tells a short narrative as if a still from a movie, which is very much what Henry is aiming to present with his work of clear Americana. The relation of the narrative is clear in this book even through the use of smaller details and portraits of the work (Henry, 2015).

After the webinar, I have a clear sense that I need to develop my narrative and sequencing skills in order to better translate my project into a coherent series. If my aim is to present the work without the information initially, then it is important to get a clear sequence of the images to tell the story I am trying to communicate. The amount of images is crucial, too. I have so far put together 20 images in my gallery, however others have many more. I need to consider how many images will make an effective narrative and how many would ultimately start to reduce the impact of the work.

The feedback, although positive, narrative was a key area to look at. People liked the display of the work and the minimal gallery and page. I am happy with this, although there are some areas I would like to develop given the time to do so. For example, the native WordPress slider has a grey background that I am unable to change without looking into detail the CSS coding to change it (I will have a go at this at some point!). The page of my gallery also features a number of tags and keywords, which function for SEO purposes but do not provide a clean looking design. Overall, these are niggles and can be looked at over the period of the course.

To start looking at narrative, I have returned to Lewis Bush’s article ‘Photographic Storytelling: A Poverty of Theory’ (Bush, 2019)^​*​ discussing how photography overlooks the power of narrative in photography and often misunderstood by photographers. 

In the article, Bush also states that Narrative and story are different but often confused. 

“One Story can spawn many narratives”

(Bush, 2019)

It is clear that the sequencing of my work will have a fundamental impact on how it might be read, which leads me back to the ‘Authors’ vs ‘Readers’ debate referenced in this weeks readings and Barthes ‘Death of the Author’ (Barthes, 1977)^​†​ It feels that the emphasis is still on the reader of the work, however I can still maintain the control of the initial experience of the work.

Looking to develop skills in Narrative, sequencing, and the edit of my work, I continue to explore Bush’s article, and looked at the discussing that Bush was having on Twitter. There are a number of reference by Bush to ‘Narratology’ which is the study of narrative structure and how this can inform our perception. The article also discusses the strength of cinema in employing photographic theory in creating a strong narrative. These are areas that will continue to explore.

I have identified some further reading:

• Relationships between Text, Narrative and Image – An Introduction
• Gérard Genette : Narratology / Signo – Applied Semiotics Theories
• Basics creative photography 02: Context and narrative
• Image, Music, Text: Roland Barthes

Overall, I am going to keep the style and layout of the gallery that I have presented, maintaining the link that I have set up, and now focus now on the sequencing and amount of images that I am presenting, supported by the information.

Working on how my work is presented after reading the Kitchen from ‘Ways of Curating’^​*​ (Obrist and Raz̤ā, n.d.) and ‘Context as a Determinant of Photographic Meaning’^​†​ (Evans and John, 1997) I have started again to consider that context and how my work is read is somewhat out of my control. The readings reference the essay by Barthes ‘Death of the Author’^​‡​ which also starts to place the most value on the ‘reader’ as opposed to the ‘author’ of the work. I have discussed Barthes’ essay before and although I do agree with this statement, I question his argument for completely removing knowledge of the author of a work as this is not something that can be easily done, and once known, it does change how the work is read.

With that said, I have looked at presenting my work as minimal as possible on my website. Previously, I was utilising the mosaic format (Fig. 1), where the work is shown in full and on quite a busy page, together with any supporting information I felt should accompany the images. After considering the readings, and conducting some research into how other photographers are presenting their images online, I have made the decision to present the work in the form of a slider (Fig. 2), where the images are viewed individually (or in the case of my series ‘Four Prefectures of Japan’ which I have since edited into a slider, a juxtaposition of images). The information is initially hidden on the page and can be revealed as an option to the reader (Fig. 3 & 4). This, I hope, will allow viewers of my work time to assimilate it and form their own narratives before they consider the information and background to the work. That said, I still maintain a control of the work in the form of the sequencing and the display. Once the information has also been taken into consideration, the images may also change their meaning to the viewer and creating an enhanced experience.

Considering the work of others

Zed Nelson

Zed Nelson displays a lot of content on his website from his various projects. I looked in particular at how the project ‘Love Me’ is displayed (Fig. 5). There are 50 images in this gallery and are displayed individually with a click through button. There is a caption to accompany the work, together with a link to additional material such as the book, the information, and the thumbnails. The work here is presented well, however Nelson’s website is quite complicated to navigate with a lot of clicks and inconsistent with the menus. The overall feel of the site is good however with the images presented on a white background.

Laura El Tantawy

The work here is presented on a white background with a clean menu to the left of the images providing a good navigation through the work and the site. When a project is clicked on, the work is first presented all together, serving the function of the thumbnails (Fig 5). When an image is selected (Fig. 6), you are able to view the images one at a time and click through at your own pace. El Tantawy’s information is hidden with a button to click and view the written justification of the work. El Tantawy’s work is very much open to interpretation, and this I feel lends itself very well to that notion of the ‘reader.’

Audio and images

I spent some time collecting audio at some of the events that I have been photographing. I want to experiment and create some kind of experiential part to my work that gives a sense of the spectacle that these Carnivals present. To explore this further, I created a quick gallery (Low Resolution) of the abstract light images that I took in Frome and added the raw audio as an option to click and listen to whilst the images are transitioning through the set. The audio is an option to enhance the experience of viewing the images.

Exploring PDF presentation

As a hangover from my freelance days, I have also started to experiment with creating a PDF version of the project as a kind of book dummy/zine. I have created these in the past when I would use a PDF to promote my commercial practice. As another way to present the work, it is quite useful to start experimenting with different typeface and design elements. 

I looked at how I could represent the work using design and created a series of experiments, playing with the typeface and the colours of the carnival.

As we are expected to produce a simplified PDF of the images presented in the work in progress gallery, I am not sure if I will include these design element. Moving forward though I aim to continue exploring this as a promotional tool for the work.