The Meta-Photo Album – December 2013
In December I created a project that nearly made my brain explode. “A Year in Pictures: The Best 8 Photos of 2013” was designed to be a criticism of the concept of photo albums as depicted in a photo album. I’ll repeat that: it was a photo album that destroyed the notion of photo albums. After enough time spent getting trapped an endless thought cycle of albums within albums, a clear idea emerged: sensationalism as the destruction of photographic truth.
The album contains eight photos that I took myself in eight different cities in eight countries around the world. The photos are certainly beautiful, but nothing out of the ordinary. A dog looking at a subject out of the frame; the ubiquitous Dutch tulip growing in Amsterdam; castoff skateboards in London. Much like popular photo essays, the excitement was found in the caption. Like plastic surgery the caption is cut, pumped up, and sewed back together with some fragment of the truth depicted.
The central idea of the album was to deconstruct sensationalism while employing it for emphasis. The album was framed in melodrama – a white cube aesthetic with harsh black text with dark, brooding photographs. It could be interpreted as a veritable attempt at album construction if not given any further thought. Designed with the critical eye in mind, this album was created to evoke anger in the viewer – why are these the best 8 photos of 2013? Who chooses them? The photos are not the point – the awakening of critical thought about the use of photo albums is the central idea.