Bogota x Barcelona: Collaborative Publication

A Photographer friend of mine went to live in Colombia for 3 months. He took a few different cameras however the one film camera he took with was the one that becomes the topic of this publication. A few months after returning home to London, he went to Barcelona on a short leisure holiday with friends. He proceeded to take photos on the camera of the latter holiday, and it was only once developed that he realised he had left the film in and double exposed the images. The end results are something raw and visual, combining two stories into one; 'where two worlds collide'. Both the context and the aesthetic of the images produce a conceptual and abstracted series that merit great scope for a focused publication.

The nature of the end compositions takes on a sense of total organic collating. With the linear aspects within the individual subjects taking the role of deciding the light and visual qualities of each area of each photograph. The end result is for a series of images that depict what is to be seen. Youth, colour, shape, and scene to name a few. The narratives of these two cities, and two completely separate experiences, fuse and combine at the will of the camera itself. What is left is a rooted feel for the atmosphere, aromas and aesthetic of what the scene has to offer. 

The grand mistake that becomes an accidental delight, or a delightful accident. 
As if the original photographs themselves were never meant to stand alone. 

Photographer's statement:

This is a series of photos taken across 2 different cities, Bogota and Barcelona. The photos were taken on two separate point and shoot cameras bought at flee markets in each city, and both broke on finishing the roll of film. I used the same roll in order to double expose street scenes and moments I experienced on each trip. The result combines street photography, landscape and nature photography, and general photos of old and new friends who showed me their native home cities.

A lot of the photos have this strip / horizontal rectangle that can be used as a design feature for the publications identity. It is the naturally occurring strips and shapes that collate the final compositions. How these linear qualities break the photograph is what forms the collage of final composition, thus taking these sectors to frame certain parts of the imagery is what the publication should draw in on. As the overall images are quite busy and hard to understand at first, maybe by sectioning off parts, the viewer can understand their stories with greater ease. 

Research & initial ideas:

Front Cover initial experiments:

This photograph really stood out to me amongst the bunch, as it is an absolute disguise. The perfect block doesn't merge with the former image but blocks its subjects. The resultant composition is solid and inquisitive, adding an element of mystery. The shape of the exposed film is stained and this shape becomes the border for most of the following imagery, these following photographs feel subsequently different to the entire collages. I thought by taking the block and manipulating it to its most basic form, presenting its textures and tones, possibly through the medium of print, would be a relevant cover, inviting the viewer into the story through this door.

These experiments look at the possible colours the photograph can emit, as well as inverting techniques to get the central block to be the focus. It almost creates a concrete-like feel, juxtaposing the nature it originally depicts. This idea of the material versus nature and environment is the perfect blend to encompass both the physical and natural beauty of the travels - the metropolis and the desert, the people and the colours. 

The colour of the flags (blue yellow and red) should be references in some way, that's why yellow was experimented with for a full gradient solution. It was also tested to see how repeating the image could look, almost like construction. The possibility of having two to reference the two cities could work, having them merged together to create a new shape - as this publication is set to notice how line produces form.