My friend Lauren suggested doing a post about how the books pieced together, and what each element of the book signifies, which I like the idea of given theres no writing in the book, and the description page on the product page is limited in explanation. Some parts of the book have been done with real intent and purpose, others just because I think they look nice.
The cover seems like a good place to start. The cover on each book is a variation of my race number I used at the Olympic Games. On the softcover book, the number is wrapped around the front, back, and inside of the front cover, with the crinkles going throughout the entire cover. Initially, I had planned on using the same cover for both books - though wanted some differentiation between the two. A more distorted number, and an altered spine for the hard cover would set the two apart. The 194 number holds significance to me, and though I would've done this regardless of the number assigned to me, it was nice having an added layer. The last house I lived in, with my family in Marlborough, was at 194 Wrekin Road. In 2017, shortly after returning north to begin training in the National Programme, we had a house fire, losing our family dog, most of our belongings, and our house in the process. In the time prior to the fire, a council zoning amendment meant that rural properties numbers were taken by the order along the road, in reference to the length of the road, not by drawing a straight line from the roads origin - as it had previously been. So, an official change to 168. But we kept the number 194 on the letterbox, until the fire, where in which they were called out to '168 Wrekin Road' - marking a permanent change.
The 'Callum' signature on the book is handwritten, but not by me. When numbers at races are handed out to team managers, they write the persons name on them as a means of ensuring no identity fraud in the velodrome. I liked the idea of keeping the design pretty lo-fi, to encapsulate the wider philosophy of the book - shooting on a plastic camera, with an outdated technology, but focussing on the less documented aspects of sport at the highest level.
I chose the colour red because 1) I like the colour red, 2) the cliche 'blood sweat and tears', 3) the primary colour of the Japanese Flag, 4) and it being the colour we instinctively assign with COVID-19.
The contents of the book are a mixture of images i'll describe in length in a corresponding post, and some documentation from the games. Anything that wasn't taken by my film camera, was taken through the 'scan' function on Notes.
Our quarantine arrival card was given to us after we cleared customs and have returned negative PCR tests upon arrival into Japan. Prior to departing, we had heard stories of other athletes spending upwards of 10 hours in the airport holding pattern awaiting a negative test. In reality, our wait ticked closer to 4 hours. Though, when compounded with travel to Auckland, airport wait, flight to Singapore, stopover, Flight to Narita, airport holding pattern, wait for bus, bus trip, totalled nearly 40hrs travel time from my flat in Cambridge, to the Satellite Olympic Village in Izu, Shizuoka, Japan.
Our de-embarkation card is nothing novel, but something I decided to include to assign an individual to the book, but also to highlight the brevity of our stay. 12 days. 2 days shorter, than our stay in MIQ. Upon landing, in two weeks time i'd be sitting in MIQ, having competed at an Olympic games.
The final piece of scanned paraphernalia present in the book, is my Olympic skinsuit. This, and the image of my team mates stretching, were two late additions to the books final format, and the only things I changed about the design since leaving MIQ in August. I couldn't quite decide whether the suit belonged in the book. Because it was something that looked like it should've been photographed, unlike the other pieces of documentation. I played around with making it less harsh and imposing, as it seemed to clash too much with the softer images. Though I knew the significance of a racing suit required a full page, with a white background, and no distractions. It belonged in the book.
As for images, I wanted them to tell a story of sorts. 'The whole being greater than the sum of its parts' was an adage I always knew would apply to this project. I wasn't looking to take the best photos I could, but rather encapsulate the experience as a whole, and hope my time spent taking photos in the past would account for the lack of finesse or patience in the moment.
I honestly can't remember what order the book came together. There'd often be moments where i'd be playing around with sizing, ratios, combinations at 11pm, tweak something else and it'd be 2am. So rather than fake the creation, i'll reverse engineer whats ended up in the book.
Being black and white, rather than pairing up colours, I was looking for photos that complimented one another in some way. Sometimes, this came in the form of similar objects being present, as with the 'ICE ICE - Double Aeropress' spread, other times a similar moment to try give an insight into travel, training, or the beautiful monotony of many of these events. Train - Eat - Rest - Train - Eat - Rest - Compete. In these images i'd try still find some continuity or contrast in either light, texture, or leading lines.
The full-spread images were the ones i'd want people to stop, and almost recalibrate while going through the book. I've always enjoyed a stop-break in formatting to draw attention back into a narrative. The first full page spread, was used as a close to the travel to get to Izu. I liked this photo for a number of reasons, but mainly for the viewing of fellow NZ Olympic Team mate David Nyika in the quarter finals of the mens boxing at the games - such was the case with much of our travel. When we could connect to WiFi someone would get a stream going to see how our team mates were going. This eagerness to find connection was a unique aspect of these games - given any other competition the entire team would travel, live, spectate, and celebrate together. This time around, many of our team mates had begun competing before i'd even packed my bag back in Cambridge, and similarly, our entire rowing team was back in MIQ in Christchurch before the first of our riders hit the track to race.
The one of the team stretching was another one that just had a lot of layers within it, with the nice lines from the roof drawing a viewer back through the photo. To me it also shows a little insight into the stuff required to get out bodies functional to compete. Sam (kneeling) has three slipped discs, Ethan (bending) has substantial hip damage, and Ellesse (standing) has since sustained a broken collarbone - meaning if I were to take a photo like this in the future, she'd likely be doing a stretch of activation exercise for a muscle group giving her should stability. Roné (in the back) is our physio, and the sole reason we have the ability to compete and live as we do, in light of these pathologies. I think that individuality of each of them shines through in this photo, but it also shows the different paths, and setbacks we've had to grow through and embrace, in order to move forward.
The next spread was again used to highlight the uniqueness of the lifestyle we were living leading into an Olympic games. It also brings a connection to the landscape we were living within, which I found most of the other photos failed to do so. That landscape is significant because of the context of track cycling at large. During our entire stay, we were living in Izu, Shizuoka - a mountainous peninsula south of Tokyo, with a view of Mt Fuji on a clear day. The Keirin, a sprint event within track cycling, originated in Japan in 1948 as the countries first legal form of gambling to stimulate economic activity after the war. The betting circuit remains today, turning over nearly $750 billion JPY in 2020 ($9.1 Billion NZD), holding a secretive allure to it, given its very traditional roots. Izu is the home, and birthplace of Keirin racing, with the Olympic Velodrome built on the same school many keirin riders train on under military-esque constraints, and have trained on since 1948.
Two pages over, are two of the few 'processes' I took photos of in Japan. Again, giving a moving representation of what our day-to-day looked like at the games was important to telling the wider story.
The next change in formatting is from the ice bath. For context, i'd ridden into the top two in my heat to qualify for the quarter finals the next day, hoped on the bus, and b-lined it back to the accomodation. Breaking up the drive with Facetime calls to a very excited Lizzi and her friends in Dunedin, aswell as a pretty steamed house of friends, and family, watching together in Marlborough. I decided to blow up the photo of the ice to give a more visceral feel to the bath. I contemplated making it a full spread. tossing up the idea of actually printing onto the same red card as the cover and have this as the middle of the book. But instead I chose to use the two photos as context to one another, and to mark a coming-to-close of the competition part of the book.
The next spread of the 'exit' shows the duty of care, and diligence upheld by Japanese authorities, volunteers, and officials throughout the games. With two of these guys in uniform, in 35 degrees, all day, at every crossing in the village. This spread marks the beginning of the close of the book.
If I can think of anything else that went into making the books, i'll keep adding it into here, but I think thats me for now.