OUGD503 COLLABORATIVE PRACTICE FINDERS KEEPERS RESEARCH

I began my research for the series of collaborative zines with Mike by discussing with him the projects that would be documented in the publications. The entire project has been titled 'Finders Keepers' by Mike and contains three smaller expressions of the brief. The brief entails discovering found photography and finding a narrative within them that gives them a narrative as such. I began my own research by taking these projects apart and studying the photography within each of the briefs, to try and find some sort of common theme to begin designing a layout of sorts that would aid me us in the creation of the zines.

All three of the photo projects contain found imagery, containing a different narrative for each one. Each of the projects images came in different shapes and sizes but remained consistent within the individual ones. For instance, one about photo booth photography came in small portrait exposures and another all in small camera film exposures. Mike gave me three small rationales describing each of the projects, giving me some insight to the thought process behind them.

Finders Keepers 01 - Unnamed 

This project aims to demonstrate the dangers of mis interpretation found imagery. Collecting images can build a skewed version of a person’s life.

In response to this an exaggerated narrative was formed to show how easily our lives can be mis contextualised.

Finders Keepers 02  - Photoautomat

This work was created to explore the aura of the photo booth and to show its contrasting uses. For purely practical means of identification, and to preserve a special memory, they demonstrate what records we leave behind in our photographs. 

Finders Keepers 03  - Celebration

This project intents to celebrate found photography, to express the skills and historic value the authors of these images gift to us. To celebrate what their images can show us of their time.

Having a better understanding of the imagery I would using will help me in my initial idea phase. I now know what each one is trying to translate and I also know from Mike's perspective, how he wants the covers to look. I will now begin playing with type and typesetting to explore different ways of translating the cover for the zine series. After this I we will meet again and discuss our ideas and see how far we have both gotten.