tom howard

Critical Review: Joy Division by Kevin Cummins

This is a review of Joy Division by Kevin Cummins, a book of photos of the band both off and on the stage, and a collection of images of Joy Division ephemera. Kevin Cummins was a photographer that started his career around the time Joy Division formed, and was given greater access to shooting the band than any other photographer.

I am a Joy Division fan, although I’m probably nowhere near as obsessive as 90% of their fan-base, but I like to think I have a greater knowledge of them than the clueless kids buying their “vintage look” Unknown Pleasures shirts from Topman. However, this book wasn’t really an essential purchase for me, when it comes to music I am 100% about the music itself, I couldn’t care less about the bands backstory and their image, so a book of photos of a band in theory isn’t that appealing. However, when I first saw this in Fopp, the cover jumped out at me, beautiful sans-serif embossed type on an orange bound book, with a just over half-height white “dust jacket” (I believe is the correct term) with a stunning grainy, black and white image of Ian Curtis. My love for minimal design was coming out and screaming “pick it up, pick it up.” As I started to flick through, the photos of amazing Joy Division equipment and tit-bits, the orange times new roman foreword on the slightly yellow-hued paper, the bold black and white images of the bands most intimate moments, I was sold, this was one beautiful book. This was on the to buy list, as soon as I wasn’t skint. But being the lucky guy I am, my girlfriend took note and told Santa to hook me up.

Upon receiving the book, I was excited to finally get to have a real look through and spend some time soaking up every little detail. Obviously being a Graphic Design student, the first thing I payed attention to is the layout and design of the book, which is designed by Mark Farrow. The first few pages with the photos of the ephemera I would say are very basic and minimal, just with the necessary info on the image at the bottom of the page. The pages that stood out to me most for being well designed are the index pages. They show what image is on what page to make them easier to find, with a small thumbnail of the image but printed in orange ink, and with the info at the bottom of the page of where and when they were taken, so on the page where the actual photo is, there is no need for any text on the page detracting from the photo itself. These pages are laid out very well indeed, perfect balance of content and negative space, and definitely pulls off just using orange on white, which I also think is a great idea as it doesn’t give away the full image, you have to wait till the full sized, full quality b&w on the later pages. After the index are obviously the pages with the actual photos on, not much to talk about design wise on these, with pretty much one image per page or double page, with a nice white border so the image is not to overpowering. Obviously the cover to the book is well designed, as it is what first attracted me to it, and the quality of the book is great, it feels exceptionally well made, and it is the little details like the embossed type that really make the minimal design work and make you feel like you are getting a real high quality piece of work.

On to the photos next, and I’ve got to say I am definitely a fan of grainy black and white images. If I had enough time and money, everything I shot would be on high iso black and white film (just waiting for Santa to bring me a Yashica T4). The digital vs analogue argument is one that will never end and there will always be ups and downs to both sides and I don’t believe there will ever be a “winner”, but there are a few reasons I personally prefer film to digital. First, there is no instantly checking if the moment you captured is perfect enough, no second chance, you’ve either got the image or you haven’t. I believe shooting this way gets a lot more natural and organic results, and often images you may have dismissed and deleted with your digital preview, are the really special images that capture how a moment actually was, not how you wanted it to come across. Secondly, they just have that look. You know what I mean, the look that people (myself included sadly) try to recreate on photoshop by adding some grain, maybe editing the colour curves/levels to make it look cross-processed. All that new technology and you want your images to look like they were taken 30 years ago on a camera one tenth of the price of yours, makes sense. There is also something I think about these grainy black and white images that makes them feel candid, like they’re part of a private collection we aren’t meant to see, well apart from the ones put in the press packs and on album covers (the best of). I think the lack of any colour makes you really focus on the subject of the image, rather than the image itself, and I think it really helps to bring out the emotions of each image, and also fits the image of the band perfectly, the bleak emotional lyrics and lack of any colour in album art. The photos themselves are all beautifully composed, perfectly exposed and keep your focus on the subject rather than the photo, which in my opinion is the sign of a good photographer.

Overall, I would say this is a great book, it is a definite essential for die-hard fans (they probably bought it on release day anyway), but also a great book to pick up even if you’re only a casual fan like myself. The images are powerful, well shot, and really catch the band in their prime, and I am a big fan of the design of the book. It is good to not have the same old rehashed info in another unofficial biography. This is a lovely high quality book, coffee table material, recommended.