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Print: $13.79 Download: FREE The book is abut two images of youth culture one created by newspapers and another by young people themselves.
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Anita Lasocka's Blog
2008 Dec 15 The Front Page Story was my first published book and therefore first encounter with self-publishing. Neither I had any experience with the use of online networking to develop and present my personal project. Therefore, I found Lulu and Facebook rather challenging in terms of online interaction with other people and online presentation of my work, as well as publishing. As I don't have any experience with traditional publishing and my experience with print on demand is rather limited my self-reflection might be rather biased and link with other people experience and research.
I found the print on demand very convenient form of self-promotion and expressing one's creativity without costs usually associated with publishing. Both of those aspects are usually mention by artists as advantages of self-publishing. 'Self-publishing is often considered to be a quicker and cheaper process than approaching traditional publishers, with a greater level of creative and editorial control (Forrester, 2008:19).' The other advantage of self-publishing which I noticed is possibility of linking my final work with very early stadium of research as we did by using Lulu blog. Although I didn't take full advantage of that possibility, I noticed it and I can see that it might be very usefull to my future project, especially if I will find an audience who would like to contribute to the research to the next book.
The other advantage of self-publishing, which is definitely unavailable in traditional publishing is possibility of sharing your work with other people, artists without asking them to buy the final product. As I had three participants in my work who also submit their own photographs it was easier for me to share my work with them using tools available in Lulu and Facebook then in traditional way. In consequence, I send them online version of my book without additional cost from either of parts. What's more, the very flexible copyright law supported by the Internet may allow them to continue to The Front Page Story and develop their own project which might expand the subject of youth culture.
Therefore, the idea of traditional copyrights is almost abolished, because it encourages the consumer to produce their own art. This introduce the schema of 'the long tail'. 'At the top of the curve, the studios, major labels, and publishers defend their copyright fiercely. In the middle, the domain of independent labels and academic presses, it's a grey area. Farther down the tail, more firmly in the non commercial zone, an increasing number of content creators are choosing explicitly to give up some of their copyright protections.'(Anderson, 2007:75). Therefore, a consumer of art and artist can both be publishers and work independently on the same project as well as being consumers of the final product (ibid, 83).
Bibliography:
1.Anderson, C. (2007) The Long Tail: How Endless Choices Is Creating Unlimited Demand. London: Random House
2.Forrester, L. (2008) Self-publishing photobooks. Forrester
2008 Oct 20 The Front Page StoryPHOTOBOOK PROPOSAL The Front Page Story is my respond to the research about youth culture, my confusion by images of youth produced by media, especially newspapers, with my own experience with young people who are rather friendly and social-orientated. However, media reproduces completely different image. During the three weeks newspaper research I managed to accumulate lots of articles about youth vandalism, murders as well as being the victims of criminal offence. The Front Page Story project is an analyse of two different images of youth culture existing in our society, one created by media and the other existing through my own experience with teenagers and created by young people themselves. The youth people throughout history were always a issue for society. As Hebidige argued ‘Youth is present only when its presence is a problem, or is regarded as a problem’ (Hebdige, 1988:17). This might explain why we can only see deformed images of youth culture in media. Our society notice teenagers and get interested in their life only when they start breaking rules and getting violent. ‘The paradox here is that young people appear to be represented by the mass media at one and the same time as symbols and victims of society, as well as a treat to it’ (Wyn and White, cited in Miles, 2000:70). As a result of that research, I developed The Front Page Story project, which is an attempt to raise the discussion between two worlds developed by newspaper: violent teenager or victim of this violence and the other brought into existence by teenagers themselves. Because of this, I needed some kind of division between those two world. As a result, I used black and white photographs, which I took, for portraits of young people and newspapers articles. Both of them depict the image of young people mostly seen in the newspapers. The colour photographs were done by young people themselves. They were taken by Hester, James and Stephen. I ask them to take ten photographs which can in the best possible way show what young culture is for them and how do they see themselves in this cultural phenomenon. However, the work was limited only to three participants I think that The Front Page Story raise the discussion about youth and their representation. Young people don’t see themselves as violent or victims of violence which is shown in media. They look at themselves as part of a group, they like to belong somewhere, socialising and not being alone. I used 2 methods: a group and sequence in organisation of my photobook. I divided it in 3 chapters telling story about each teenager in comparison to the newspaper article. They all start from black and white ‘scary’ portrait and ‘scary’ headline of crimes committed by youngsters. Next part is a collection of photographs submitted by participants: their image of youth culture. The chapter ends with politicians opinion or solution for young people problems and their victimised or positive image. The chapters are linked together by book cover and what I can call ‘second book cover’. The main cover is a collection of by criminal and victimizesed media representation of teenagers. The ‘second cover’ is ‘the inside story’, the colourful photographs of happy and interactive young people. The photographs submitted by teenagers are placed as a group, without any particular order. The book has narrative linking movement. It is a story and discussion about image of young people in media and their every day life. I tried to introduce self-reflexivity to the book by adding double cover. It suggest another narratives, something like ‘inside story’ in opposition to The Front Page Story. Another dialogue in the book is between the newspapers articles and submitted photographs as only them are multiplied on the page. Lastly, the black and white photographs divide the world in two by referring to criminalised and socialised youth culture. Graphic layout consist of two page spread; photographs are one or few on the page. The single images are beginning of each teenagers story. -Document size: A5 vertical -Number of pages: 42 -Fonts: Cambria Hebdige, D. (1988) Hiding in the light: on images and things. London: RoutledgeMiles, S. (2000) Youth Lifestyles in a Changing World. Buckingham: Open University Press                      2008 Oct 16 | ............. Setchin and His Brother Mabo, 1963 ................. | ............................ Tokyo Nude, 1989 .......................... | ....................... Sentimental Journey,1991 ..................... |
| .............................. Erotos, 1993 ............................... | ........................ Tokyo Nostalgy, 1993 ......................... | ........................ Tokyo Nostalgy, 1993 .......................... |
| ........................ Tokyo Nostalgy, 1993 ......................... | ........................... Life by Leica, 1999 .......................... | .................... End of the Century, 2001 ........................ |
Araki Nobuyoshi's official site: http://www.arakinobuyoshi.com/2008 Oct 07  ‘I always want to be in the gap, in a delicately balanced position – the gap between the ordinary and the extraordinary, the gap between the sacred and the vulgar, fiction and reality, art and obscenity. I want to be on the edge, sometimes entering the realm of the divine, sometimes the vulgar world. I want to be an on the edge person.’ (Cited in Araki, 2001:5) Author: Nobuyoshi Araki with text by Adrian Searle Title: Tokyo still lifeDate: 2001 Publisher: Ikon Gallery Location: Birmingham ISBN: 0 907594 74 3 The book was published in 2001 as a photo catalogue of Japanese photographer Nobuyoshi Araki produced for exhibitions in Ikon Gallery in Birmingham. Accomplished by Adrian Searle’s essay the book is a collection of eight series, each of them telling the separate stories, often controversial fantasies, nudes, memories, portraits, urban landscape, also including still life. All of them unified to picture Tokyo urban life through provocation and emotion. The book is arranged in chronological order of published albums, which is listed at the its beginning. The next pages consist of Forward by Jonathan Watikns and essay by Adrian Searle. The colophon is listed at the end of the book preceded by list of artist’s solo and group exhibitions Each photo chapter has their own movement, graphic layout and self-reflectivity. The artist uses them rather freely, building the complexity of the photobook and his own broad collection of work. Some of the units appear as an artist journey through his life (Sentimental journey, Satchin and his brother mabo) or fantasy (Erotos, Tokyo nostalgy) or are mixture of both of them (Life by leica, End of the century). At the first glance, the graphic layout of the photobook looks random. However, the artist uses two-page spreads to locate full-bleed images, borders or arrangement of several photographs to emphasise the importance of others, mainly to shock and trigger emotional reaction (Tokyo nude, Tokyo nostalgy). He often returns to the same scene, showing its variation in a single album as well as throughout the whole book. This might result in reading books backwards and forewords as well as interpretation of the images on different levels, within different layouts and sizes and their subjects. Moreover, the publication involves in discourse of the concept of art especially with nude photography. Therefore, the book has some kind of a stream of self-consciousness, which effects in spontaneity in its organisation. Although being a catalogue of Araki’s work ‘Tokyo still life’ is also a photobook as it is a collection of eight different albums with the same main theme, the Tokyo life and erotic fantasy immortalized in photography. ‘Feeling feeling feeling feeling. Pressing the shutter is like stopping the breath for a second. But no killing, please. It's just a state of suspended feeling’. (Cited in Araki, 2001:6)  link to the archive of the Ikon Gallery in Birmingham, with the short description of Nobuyoshi Araki's exhibition
http://www.ikon-gallery.co.uk/programme/past/event/153/tokyo_still_life/
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