Using MagCloud to create a physical version of my photo series, In The Public Eye, was easy and pain free. Publishing a magazine of my photos seems to make my role as an artist more legitimate, at least in my opinion, because I am a very tactile person. Taking the time to choose my images and put them in an order that makes sense was a difficult task, but one that made me think a lot about the importance of order. Studying Robert Frank's The Americans also made me think more in depth about the significance a certain order can have. Frank ordered his images in a holistic way so that they blend together in ways that make sense and make people think. Sarah Greenough's article "Transforming Destiny into Awareness: The Americans" looks into some of the choices Frank makes in ordering his photos and how they are significant. He takes a number of approaches, including juxtaposition of subjects, and grouping ideas.
Ordering images isn't something I had put much thought into before, but after reading the article, I rethought the order of my photos in my magazine. I decided to group each of my photo shoots together. I used two, three, or four from each separate photo shoot. Within each group, I ordered it in a way that made sense and that flowed well together. Choosing the order of the groups was a little bit harder - I ended up choosing the order based on form, color, and composition. Many of my photos were taken in the same general area - so I also ordered them in a way that made it feel that you could walk from one set to another, since they were very close by. After ordering and reordering, I came up with my final product which I submitted to MagCloud through Flickr.
