1. Research a photo-book and describe the story it is communicating  with reference to subject-matter, genre and approach to image-making.

“The Ballad of Sexual Dependency” by Nan Goldin

2. Who is the photographer? Why did he/she make it? (intentions/ reasons) Who is it for? (audience) How was it received? (any press, reviews, awards, legacy etc.)

Goldin proposed that the work The Ballad of Sexual Dependency could act as a visual diary of her life alongside the lives of her close friends and lovers; it started life, essentially, as something of a traveling slide show that Goldin held at various parties and galleries, backed by music. This work, by its very nature, demanded immediacy and emotional truth.  At the onset, the audience for it was composed of her friends, lovers, and communally. She never intended for the work to be made famous. Rendered first as a slide show in the early ’80s, many in attendance were scandalized. It was too raw, too sexual, too real-for-the-people, and not mainstream-much too raw and uncensored for any art scenes. But nevertheless, it developed quite a cult following.

3. Deconstruct the narrative, concept and design of the book and apply theory above when considering:

• Book in hand: how does it feel? Smell, sniff the paper. – It is a thick, matte paper with a subtle texture, giving it the semblance of something old but well looked after. Not glossy. Not clean. It feels like it has been lived in. Just like the people in photos. That classic ink and paper scent but more intense, assistant cigarette smoke and Polaroid chemicals somehow got stuck between these pages. Some dust, some sweat, maybe. Like it’s been up in a loft with records and velvet couches and stories exchanged in the dark.

• Paper and ink: use of different paper/ textures/ colour or B&W or both. – The book employs an uncoated matte paper for printing by an offset process, allowing strong color saturation without looking painfully sharp or digital. Nan Goldin is famed for her emotional uses of color photography.

• Format, size and orientation: portraiture/ landscape/ square/ A5, A4, A3 / number of pages. – It is a landscape-based, A4-size photo book, consisting of about 144 pages, mostly filled with raw, emotional color portraits and candid scenes. The intimate diary-like feel that the book takes from the original format of Goldin’s slideshows is enhanced by its matte paper and the grainy texture. Full bleed images, spreads, and carefully paired photographs form the layout, people being deeply personal and cinematic about young love, identity, and vulnerability.

• Binding, soft/hard cover. image wrap/dust jacket. saddle stitch/swiss binding/ Japanese stab-binding/ leperello – This newly published work is softcover, perfect-bound, and has no dust jacket, giving a raw and intimate feel appropriate to its content. The binding is simple and accessible-a visual diary rather than an official art book-reinforcing exactly what Nan Goldin aims at his audience: real life without artificiality.

• Cover: linen/ card. graphic/ printed image. embossed/ debossed. letterpress/ silkscreen/hot-stamping. – It does come from card stock rather than linen; it has simply a photographic image printed directly on the cover-most typically one of Nan Goldin’s own emotional, color-saturated portraits. The book does not employ any embossing, debossing, letterpress, silkscreen, or hot-stamping methods. The design is intentionally simple and raw, reflecting a documentary, diary-like style rather than an object presented as a polished or luxury art piece.

• Title: literal or poetic / relevant or intriguing. –Narrative: what is the story/ subject-matter. How is it told? -Structure and architecture: how design/ repeating motifs/ or specific features develops a concept or construct a narrative. –Design and layout: image size on pages/ single page, double-spread/ images/ grid, fold- outs/ inserts. – The Ballad of Sexual Dependency. The title seems poetic as well as quite mysterious: it is not a true description of the content but metaphorically one. “Ballad” indicates form in most cases, preparation for tragic or emotional stories, and by “sexual dependency,” it talks about co-morbidities of attachment, love, and other complications in the human condition. It is relevant, as well as intriguing, because it ties much into the institutionalization of the love affairs on-going emotional journey, through which are understood issues of desire and intimacy, and vulnerability, but it also suggests that the journey into this emotional phenomenon continues, even painfully sometimes.

• Images and text: are they linked? Introduction/ essay/ statement by artists or others.  Use of captions (if any.) – Nan Goldin writes her own personal introduction to The Ballad of Sexual Dependency, which lays down an emotional base for the book. There are not really captions, however some pictures do have short, poetic titles with names and dates relating to them given in such a way that they offer concise suggestion on the context. The text and picture are complexly interwoven with the writing for an evocative atmospheric sense rather than as a descriptive accompaniment to the photographs, how one most realistically approaches the work.