Books and 'Flow'

[Spleenrippa]

I've wanted to get together the work my brother and I have done and produce a book for some time. Only thing is, we never focussed on just one project/subject so I can't really figure out what kind of things to include and what not.
Any thoughts? Do you guys find books just throw in random stuff in random places, or should the work actually relate as the book progresses?

The best I've come up with so far is something like :
Intro>> portraits >> group shots >> street >> buildings >> landscape

 

[rbiemer]

I've wanted to get together the work my brother and I have done and produce a book for some time. Only thing is, we never focussed on just one project/subject so I can't really figure out what kind of things to include and what not.
Any thoughts? Do you guys find books just throw in random stuff in random places, or should the work actually relate as the book progresses?

The best I've come up with so far is something like :
Intro>> portraits >> group shots >> street >> buildings >> landscape

I've made a few books, two of just photos and one with my brothers poetry and my photos.
Random order just looks, well, random. It depends, I think, on what you are wanting to show; is the book intended to show an overview of your photography or is the intent to explore a specific subject or to explore a specific place--for a few ways you might want to think about this.
One thing that did work well for me was to make prints of the photos I wanted to use in my books--and these were just quick digi prints on regular paper--and physically lay them out to see how the order looked. I took over the living room floor for this. After I'd sorted them that way, it was much easier to lay out the book in my computer. I did try to relate the photos to each other in some way--something like the "photo association" threads here--and I kept the collection focused on a particular place mainly as a way to keep it as simple as I could.
Rob

 

[Don Parsons]

To me, books usually relate to one idea. Landscapes are a book. Portraits are a book. Street photography is one subject for a book. Look for a larger, overall theme and not just "here are my pictures aren't they great!". You're too young to have a retrospective. BC is great, I've been there and love it. It's a very photorich environment.

 

[Spleenrippa]

Thanks for the replies guys.
The idea of laying out the photos on the floor is great! I think I will go ahead and get my candidates printed off so I can do that 🙂
As for a book being one subject... Thing is, I don't think my bro and I have done enough work on any one subject to fill a book! That's why I was hoping to come up with a logical progression for our work- the one I posted above goes from scenes containing 'many people' to ones containing the least (or none).

 

[Lilserenity]

I had this thought too about a project I am working on that is quite specific in what it is on, but is also quite loose in terms of the styles and genres it covers.

I've decided to tie it together chronologically, although the time-spanned is expressed over seasons so it's not all from a hot summer, but generally speaking the story is arranged as dawn to dusk.

That makes sense to me.

For other things it probably wouldn't work.