What Message Does (Hyper)realistic Photography Send on a Book Cover?
Photography as part of book cover design is a relatively recent addition to book cover designers’ and marketers’ toolboxes. It was not until the late 20th century—as camera equipment became more accessible—that photographic book covers began to gain popularity for their ability to convey realism, emotion and immediacy to the audience.
Now that designers are able to blend graphic design, photos and typography freely, the possibilities are endless when it comes to piquing readers’ interest. Among them, hyperrealistic photography has emerged as a playful way to bend and break expectations.
In this article, we’ll take a little look at how photography has been used in book cover design and what message hyperrealistic photography in particular conveys to readers.
Photography on memoirs and crime novels
Photography is more popular in some genres than others. For nonfiction like memoirs or autobiographies, the use case is obvious: by putting the face of the subject matter—famous or not—on the cover, readers immediately know what genre the book is and who it is about. Take Stable, designed by Christian Rafetto, for instance. The pensive woman wearing a stetson with a horse in the background, rendered in black and white, not only places the book squarely in the memoir genre, but also in its Western subgenre where horse-enthusiasts are more likely to look.
If the person is famous, their face is also their best marketing asset. Whether they are fans or just curious about the person behind the photo, the target audience is more likely to pick it up. Photographic covers not only establish genre, but also a sense of authority and intimacy: “This is me, trust me, I know what I’m talking about.” Pics or it didn’t happen.
On crime fiction covers, on the other hand, realistic photography plays a slightly different role, evoking a sense of “this could happen to anyone.” A cabin in the woods, a lake at nighttime, or the facade of a house: these are eerie images that inform the reader what atmosphere to expect between the pages and reminds them that we never know what goes on behind closed doors.
Hyperrealism: a hint at the surreal realities of the everyday
So what about hyperrealistic photography?
Hyperrealistic photography is a style of photography—based on the eponymous style of painting—that creates a sense of augmented reality through post-processing and editing techniques. It goes beyond simply capturing the scene in front of you and results in ultra-detailed, high-resolution images that capture more than the naked eye can see, creating a sense of “perfected reality” that feels almost surreal to the beholder.
In his theory of “paratexts,” French literary theorist Gérard Genette famously said that the cover acts as the threshold of the book, meaning that it is the beginning of the reading experience. So if hyperrealistic photography has the ability to convey a surreal or even uncanny feeling, it’s likely that the story itself has these very same qualities. For genres like fantasy or magical realism, it takes this sense of hyper reality to convey that something beyond reality is going on in the story, whereas in literary fiction, it is more often a way to capture the surreal and uncanny in everyday life.
Food photography
Take hyperrealistic food photography, for instance. There’s something almost grotesque or forbidden that calls out to the reader. There’s a suggestion of lurking danger behind these everyday objects, hinting at the hidden perils of home or society.
Sometimes it is subtle, like the sandwich with tanning lines on Sandwich by Catherine Newman, burnt and crumbling at the edges. Sometimes it plays on the trope of the Stepford wife, like the offering of raw steak on Nightbitch, and sometimes there’s something about the immediacy, the confrontational nature of the subject, like with Piglet and Crudo, that just feels, well, crude. As a reader, you expect the tones of these photos to echo through the pages.
Marketed largely towards a generation of women where food itself has often been deemed a forbidden pleasure, the book cover becomes an alluring invitation for transgression. A chance to confront reality as it is, look at it closely and break it down in heightened detail to see beyond the facade and ultimately experience something beyond what we think reality is, and instead see something hyperreal.
Face photography
Another common motif on hyperrealistic book covers is closeups of human faces, sometimes with details added like painted tears, like on Bronwyn Fischer’s The Adult, or the reflection of a pirate ship in the eye of the character on Adrienne Young’s Fable. And the pearlescence of the water on Young Mungo by Douglas Stuart hints at the tragic beauty of this story about a young man who finds himself drowning in life’s circumstances.
From a marketing standpoint, this type of hyperrealistic photography can also be a way to stand out. Piglet and Sandwich both look like they should belong in the food and cookbook section, yet here they are, catching the eye of the hungry shopper, a little bit out of place, and deliciously intriguing. The pained grimace on the now iconic cover for A Little Life by Hanya Yanagihara may make the reader ask, “what can possibly be so bad?” As a cover, it is an invitation: a question to the reader, whose curiosity may prompt them to flip the book around and read the blurb on the back. A big win in the world of cover design, where winning the battle for readers’ attention has become increasingly difficult.
In the end, cover design works in conjunction with the story itself and the message it sends will differ from book to book, cover to cover. But by augmenting reality to the point of surrealism, hyperrealistic photography on book covers invites readers to look beyond their first impressions, to pick the book back up again and study its details, just like the reading experience will prompt them to examine the world as they know it and reveal some of its absurdities, little by little.
Linnea Gradin is a writer for Reedsy — a website that connects authors with freelancing publishing professionals and gives advice on everything writing and publishing related, and how to get into the publishing industry, from how to become a book cover designer to how to set your design rates, and where to find book design jobs. When Linnea is not reading, she can be found dribbling on the football pitch, dabbling in foreign languages, or exploring the local cuisine of whatever country she happens to be in at the time.