There we go, that's how they are meant to look!

Following all that working out I got to work on the actual spreads. I have completed 6 now and I finally feel like this project is looking good! Here are some of the spreads, my favourite ones.

I dont know why blogger has changed the colour of my images....but just in case you care the grey is black and the blue is red....???

The next thing to do is choose the quotes I want to use. I found loads of quotes people have said about dogs and also loads of poems and short stories so I had no trouble finding quotes/anecdotes that I really like.

A really important thing to do was to make sure i could book-bind well enough to pull off binding the book myself. I have bound a few books in my time so wasn't too worried about being able to do it. And finally, working out HOW I was going to bind it, the layout and page ordering (including how i will print them images double sided and the right way round etc.)

I got some good images from the dog show so the next thing to do is to find a style, how am I going to actually illustrate the images? So for the following week I tried out different styles working from the photos I took at the Dog show. But as the time went on I was really struggling with the actual idea of reportage...it became more and more apparent that it just wasnt going to work with my style of drawing/image making. So after about of week of stressing, crying, not sleeping and drawing image after image trying to force myself into a style suitable for reportage, I came to the conclusion that perhaps I shouldnt be attempting reportage!

SO...

I looked over my images, picked out the style I liked the best and continued to make images in that style (image to follow) I then basically changed my project entirely. Instead of making reportage images about dogs, I decided to make a book of illustrations of dogs and quotes about dogs. This may seem simple and almost shallow but there is no doubt that I was over complicating something that is now a lot better for being simple.

The dog show was brilliant! It was a really warm sunny day and there were loads of dogs and friendly people there and no one minded answering my questions or letting me photograph their dogs-in fact, everyone seemed to be quite flattered when I asked if it was ok to!

I took hundreds of photographs and left feeling very happy that I'd finally got the images I needed to create a reportage project.

Here are some of the images from the Dog Show...

My next visit was to the RSPCA in Brighton. The ladies there were very helpful and gave me loads of leaflets and info on how they rescue the dogs etc. The Brighton centre takes on dogs from all over Sussex but there didnt seem to be that many there when I went...I think around this time was when I began to think the dog show in Chichester was my last chance to get the images I needed!

Buster is such a lovely dog but has behavioural problems when it comes to other dogs, i thought this would be a good "story" to report on.

However, I also had a visit to the RSPCA in Brighton lined up and an RSPCA Dog Show in Chichester the following week. So at this point I was gathering as many photos as possible to see which would be the best as reference for reportage.


It has been AGES since i updated my blog so a LOT has happened...I'm not quite sure where to start or where I was when i left off!

After taking photos in parks and feeling like a dog-perve (!) I just wasnt getting any images suitable to pursue reportage. At my mum's work, one of her colleagues has recently adopted a dog from the RSPCA and I arranged to go and speak to the owner and take some photos of Buster, the dog in the hope that this would give me something to "report" on.