No More, No Less is a collaborative project made through the work of three photographic artists (Kensuke Koike, Thomas Sauvin, and an unknown photography student) and three photobook publishers (Jiazazhi Press, Skinnerboox, and the(M) éditions.) Working with contemporary prints made from the anonymous student’s original negatives (sourced from a vernacular album in Sauvin’s collection,) Koike transformed the found portraits through physical manipulation and collage. Rather than choosing to work with an individual publisher, Koike and Sauvin decided to send the image files to three separate imprints, allowing them to create their own unique sequences and designs with no external input or guidance. The beautiful and dramatically different resulting publications, not only speak to the transformative and evolutionary nature of photographs, but also emphasize the importance and diversity of literary design in the photobook world. The way in which we read and interpret photographic images is constantly changing and evolving but by studying and comparing the designs of these three books, one can gain a better understanding of how individual perception is largely dependent on context and presentation.
Forrest Soper is an artist and photographer currently based out of Rochester, New York. A student at the George Eastman Museum/the University of Rochester, Forrest has worked as the editor of photo-eye Blog and as a photochemical lab technician at Bostick & Sullivan. forrestsoper.com
