“Aspects of the Human Condition” is the maturation of my earlier project, “Specimen Slides of the Human Condition.” I felt that the project was incomplete and needed more work. Over the last three years, it has grown into a book that covers thirty-four human conditions.
I am a member of the Brisbane Camera Group, which started a special forum to encourage members to develop personal projects and see them through to completion. This group provided me with the encouragement and support to continue this project through to the publication of this book.
My original intent was to produce a set of prints that could be displayed in a gallery. However, as I progressed, I focused on creating a photobook. The photos became composites as I combined multiple images to make one picture. Also, I used colour psychology to support the story being told in the picture.
An unexpected development in the project was the urge to write lyric poetry to support the pictures. When I was much younger, I wrote many lyric poems. However, it had been many years since I had consistently written until I created this book.
There are many challenges when developing a photobook. Apart from producing the pictures, the most challenging thing was determining what sequence to show them in. For the first draft, I printed each image, placed them side by side on the floor, and rearranged them into the sequence I thought would work best. I was very happy with this outcome until I was close to finishing the final version. Doubts started to creep into my mind, and I decided to resequence the images completely. The new sequence felt just right, so it was time to go to print.
Here is a short promotional video for the book:
You can buy your copy of the Aspects of the Human Condition book through the Lulu bookstore. The links are below:
Hardcopy version – click here.
Downloadable version – click here.