My book has been printed and has arrived and I could not be more happy with it. The paper I had printed on is perfect, and definitely does justice to it's depths of colour. It promised rich blacks and it delivered. Also, form the paper it's printed on. I feel that it made the lower quality images (the disposable ones) look much more romantic and beautiful.
I think the order I finally decided was pefect. It starts with the Initiation of a young male ingenue, a member of the rugby team who I then drag into my world of esoteric erotica and unique decorative aesthetics. The images of him start out fairly simply, but as the book progresses he becomes more and more consumed by the fiery ornamentation and carniverous flowers that my other subject have already surrendered to. It ends with his complete and utter immolation.
Immolation is a word that consumed me throughout this project. Previously I had understood it as a religious term, an act practiced by buddhist monks who set themselves on fire and sacrifice their bodies for Nirvana. But in reading Justine by the Marquis du Sade I came to see it very differently. There is a scene where Justine watches two young men in flagrante and the language used was incredible. It speaks of the young man immolating himself with his lover's prodigious penis. The use of what I considered a religious word in this context very exciting for me, and I fixated on that exchange. I decided that total immolation would be the climax of my book.
I feel that as the book progresses, even though it flickers between reality and fantasy throughout the entire narative, it intensifies towards the end, displaying more more ornamental images, people lost in the realms of their own deification. This book saw the rise of a device I had previously unused, vast amounts of doctored arrangements of fake flowers, particularly wreaths of red roses creating floral halos that really remind me of arse holes.
I thought carefully when making the layouts about where the gutter would go in the double page spreads. I felt that it had to interact with the image in some way. For instance, in one the gutter separates two lovers, physicalising the emotional barrier between them, previously unseen or unsuspected. One double page that I am proud of is of the male ingenue bending over revealing his muscular buttocks. The gutter falls right down the parting of his cheeks and in order to view the whole image the viewer must physically push the pages further apart, which I feel mimics the real life action when one desires to view a man's arse hole. There is another double page of a goddess with her arms spread wide. with the gutter falling directly down the centre of her body. Her arms are positioned on the page in such a way that the viewers thumbs or fingers may be resting on the girl's wrists, so in a sense, it is the viewer who is pinning down this Goddess, spread eagled on the page. "It is only the sacred things that are worth touching." Also, on the double page of the twins, it was somewhat accidental but it amuses me to see that when the pages are together, the twins' lips touch, much like their pornographic counterparts.
All in all, I am exceedingly happy with my book, and can rest easy in the fact that I will be able to take pleasure in it for many years to come.
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