Experimental Book Covers

Bit of a change tonight, and something more experimental.

Whilst editing some pics taken at Coventry over the Christmas Hols, I (Ben) got a bit bored and decided to have a play with the below image of a tower block, resulting in the header image.

I blame the fact I watched the film version of "High Rise" last week, and the film was still on my mind.  I tried making it black and white, then playing with the contrast a bit, and thought it made a pretty stark image which seemed in keeping with the book.  So then I thought I'd try it as a book cover:

I was rather pleased with how it came out- I purposely put it landscape (the portrait version didn't really work) and I thought the landscape version made it that bit more unusual and eyecatching.

After that, I thought I'd have a go with some of the other images from the same shoot, just to see what happened really if I made a series.  I chose books off my shelf, in fact books which have been background inspiration from some of my projects like the Model Village.

It seemed logical to do "The Shape of Things To Come" by HG Wells, with a shot of the blitzed ruins of Coventry Cathederal (the book, written in the early 1930's predicted a second world war), and a more modern building is just visible as well, but I have to say I was less happy with this image.

Moving on to something a bit more abstract, a close up of an engine from a motorcycle, photographed in the Coventry Transport Museum, was much more effective for "Brave New World".

Probably my favourite of the Coventry pictures, for "1984".  Again it is inside the motor museum, and a vintage grey metal desk.  The only edits apart from tone were to white-out the portrait on the desk (a nod to the fact that The Party in the book go to great lengths to get rid of the concept of romantic love- but the protagonist is in a relationship nevertheless).  The glass globe/paperweight is pretty near to the one in the book (a banned possession from pre-Revolutionary times), and the industrial, retro nature of everything else with the older wooden walls and floor just feels like it matches the book.  The final touch is the television screen on the wall which dominates the desk; in reality it plays a film about the motor industry, but it really felt like it hit the telescreen element of the book, the television/surveillance camera which is everywhere in the world of "1984".

Suitably buoyed by how well this had come out, I chose a few more of my favourite books, and decided to look through some other pics taken in museums to see if they could work too... 

I'm a massive fan of Douglas Adams, and wanted a cover for his seminal work, but obviously starships are a little hard to come by in the UK.  However it did occur that planes or missiles might work, if shot from an abstract enough angle, so it was a browse through images of the museum at RAF Cosford visited the day before the Coventry trip.

The above was a test missile, which provided a nicely generic white space ship, but seemed to slightly over-dominate the cover though, so a second attempt was completed:

This feels like it sort of works, as it is a bit abstract, but it does look a little too much like what it is- an English Electric Lightening fighter jet and atomic missile in a museum...

"Day of the Triffids" also provided a challenge, and ended up being a picture of an overgrown path in Keighley next to the Worth Valley Railway- it fits with the theme of nature reclaiming the earth, but it doesn't feel as strong a cover as some of the others...

The experimental version of "Lord of the Flies" is a beach shot from Wales, which seems to fit the book.

Vintage trains on the Worth Valley (from the 2015 gala) for "The Railway Children", though the moody monochrome doesn't seem to work as well with this one, probably because of the tone of the books... the dark gritty pictures seem to naturally suit Sci-Fi better. 

I'm quite happy with the one for "Catch 22", even though the aero engine isn't strictly accurate (as it isn't a B25, the main aircraft of the novel which the hero, Yosarian, flies in).  However I did like how the air intake looks a bit like a madly laughing mouth, which suits the black comedy of the book.

Onto another favourite novel and the space/war/time epic "The Forever War".  Again, no spaceships around and about to photograph, but I'd taken some abstract shots last summer at a museum in Northumberland of a Saracen personnel carrier, which frankly always looked a bit sci-fi anyway as a design.  The above shot from the bonnet didn't work as well as I'd hoped though, but...

...the rear-most shot was a bit grittier and better, and conveys the right military/industrial atmosphere I was after.

The final one was also tricky, and the point where I stopped.  Representing a Martian Tripod from one of our photos was always going to be tricky, so I tried heavily messing around with a night-shot from Amy's "Light Trails" series, of Blackpool Tower looming over the pier.  It sort of works, in the context of a series of book covers done using 'everyday' photos, but is a little too heavily edited compared to the others.

So that is that then- a fun little experiment, and a break from the travelogue this blog has been turning into recently.  Still, hopefully as the year gets going in earnest we can start doing some 'proper' art projects again.

All books are copyright of their respective authors/estates.