A zine for a swap

This zine swap was set to run from November last year until the end of April this year. By the time New Year cam round I had nothing planned or even a clue where to start.Tired of wandering the moss with nothing much to see and things likely to remain that way until March time I went for a look down Back Lane, a place which fascinates me but which I've never managed to make any photos of despite feeling there was a project to be made along the track.

A few days prior to my visit I'd been remembering an idea I had for a street photography project which I'd never got round to starting and which Covid restrictions scuppered. That was to take out of focus pictures as a way of commenting on how people are less willing to be 'snapped' by random strangers than they used to be. Or at least that's how it often comes across in discussions on street photography. It was also to be about how we recognise things as much by shape and colour as by fine detail. 

After some time trying to find a way to make a series of pictures of a walk down the lane I remembered the out of focus idea and gave it a try. I liked the results, which were all shot in vertical format as I was thinking 'zine' by then. There is an element of deliberate rejection of the ongoing search among camera nerds for the sharpest lenses and the highest resolution sensors behind the out of focus approach. Particularly when it comes to landscape photography.

At the same time I was looking for details to photograph in focus. My slowly formulating plan being to find a way to combine the blurred pictures of the 'landscape' with the sharp close ups.

Back on the computer I couldn't make the verticals fit any layout I tried. Messing about I thought that a spread across two pages with the close ups overlaid somehow would work. 

 

When the weather permitted I went back to re-shoot the 'landscapes' horizontally.

It might seem simple to take out of focus pictures but it's not as straightforward. Open the aperture too much and all detail is lost. Focus to far into the scene and too much detail is revealed. Focal length also plays a part as that affects depth of field. After some messing about I settled on 35mm focal length with an aperture of f4.5 and focus at the closest focusing distance. Things were coming together.

Although I had the idea sussed I wasn't too happy with the overcast skies. I needed to have another go at taking the pictures on a brighter day with a blue sky. When one came around it was a simple matter to go and take the pictures I now knew I needed to fill out a zine.

All that remained was then to put it all together. I fairly quickly abandoned the original page layout and went with a simple double page spread for the landscapes. How to add in the focused pictures though? As I wanted the blurred pictures to be a 'surprise' when the zine was opened I tried having scene setting pictures on the outside covers. I got a couple of samples like that printed.

This was OK but I still didn't have the detail shots. One idea I made a dummy for was to print nine up on a sheet of A4 in a grid and paste them one to the inside back page so it folded over the inside back page with what would have been on that side of the spread printed on the rear of the grid. This would have worked well, but it was beyond my design ability to make everything line up! That idea was therefore abandoned. I liked the grid though and tried it as the centre spread. But that broke the flow.

Another dummy was ordered with a blurred cover shot and the grid on the back cover. The minimal lettering on the cover I liked, but the picture gave the game away for what was to be found inside. Going even more minimal seemed like a plan as that would take away all expectations on picking up the zine.

The grid was still intrinsic to the project, as was the picture of the sign. An A6 card with these pictures on was one option, and it sort of worked. Job done. Anything else would be tinkering for the sake of tinkering. Time to abandon the project! When posted out the card was put in an envelope as another layer of disguising what was to be seen.

While I enjoyed the process of thinking this all through I'm not sure if it's successful. I am sure that if there were more pages it would have been tedious. And I still think that having the detail pictures in with the 'landscapes' would have been better. I just couldn't find a way to do it.

All that aside it has given me a couple more ideas to pursue along the lane. In that respect it's been a worthwhile exercise.

I have done the usual zine flip video. It's about as rubbish as my usual standard. Video is much harder to do than stills!

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500 up!

The weather and work have again kept me from venturing forth. if the day was dry I was tied up with work, if I had spare hours the rain arrived. I'm typing this when I'd rather be out and about while the rain lashes down again.

This said I have had some fruitful outings. This field being drained had been spotted on a day I had no time to stop the carp. Luckily work hadn't carried on a couple of days later when I was free to go for a look. It's yet another of my centrally aligned near-symmetrical compositions which are building into a substantial collection.

The fields of fleece and bags make regular appearances in this collection.

On one late afternoon walk when the sun shone I passed by some pigeon shooters and their decoys. If I hadn't been on a mission, which proved fruitless as my missions usually do, I would have lingered and taken more pictures. As it was by the time I returned they had left.

Setting out late in the day has been a feature thanks to the tedium of waiting in for deliveries. This means that by the time I hit the moss work is coming to an end for the day. So it was the day onions were being planted. The last rows going in as I arrived on the scene.

The new month didn't start off much different. When I did manage an hour or two earlier in the day my daft idea of taking just two single focal length lenses backfired on me with plenty of work taking place but too far away for the lenses I had with me. I guess I need to decided if I'm working on a project or just playing around. Maybe play around away from the moss? Still, I have improved slightly on my search for a photo of the Private Land sign and the yard beyond.

When there's a ditch between you and the subject you want to photograph having a zoom lens can help you get the best angle. That's why this picture isn't framed the way I'd have preferred...

 

 

It might have been cool and breezy but the sun was at least shining and the morning looking set fair when I started out. Rounding the corner on to the moss itself the distant sky looked ominous. Great as a backdrop when the sun illuminated the foreground making the colours sing. Not so great as a prospect to be walking towards when the clouds were heading my way.

Not onions being planted, but still going the wrong way - like the weather. By the time I'd walked another fifty yards it hit. Not just rain but hail too. I was lucky to take shelter by the greenhouses, the wind strong enough to blow most of the precipitation past me. Planting was called off and an early lunch taken while I waited out the passing of the shower. Ten minutes of standing around and it was dry again. April showers in May.

 

 

The moss project, such as it is, has therefore made little progress. The Lost Balls Found project, on the other hand, has reached it's conclusion. I spotted ball number 500 and managed to get a sharp photograph of it! It's a bit of a mish-mash of a series as far as artistic merit goes, but it was something I wanted to get out of my system. Now it's done I can stop looking out for lonely balls!

 

The zine swap is in full swing. Fifteen of us involved this time and already six have dropped through my letterbox. Mine is still in the pipeline but expected to arrive on Monday. I can't wait to find out how appalled the other fourteen are with it! When they are all complete and received I might have something to say about the swap and zines in general.

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Frozen out

No snow here, but it's been cold enough to freeze the ground solid which has given the farmers a chance to get machinery on the land and work under way. However a strong wind or really dull light has kept me indoors most of the time, with just a few late afternoon forays with a camera.

Even so new sights continue to appear when trudging the usual routes. They just get further apart than they used to.

When I did happen upon some activity I was a bit late on the scene and couldn't quite get the angles I wanted. The idea below was to have backlit gulls against dark fields. In addition to poor angles when the tractor got in range for a well framed shot it was too close to me for the gulls' comfort and they wheeled of and upwards.

That evening I did manage to get the setting sunlight reflecting off one of the road signs, which is a picture I've seen but never managed to take before. Usually when the sun is at the right angle to reflect it also casts my shadow into the frame. This time for some reason only the sign was lit.

 

 

Next time out I was later still and only managed a couple of pictures. One showing recent cultivation with still frozen surface water, the other what looks like hail stones but which are actually fertiliser pellets. Not important pictures on their own, but potentially useful in a series.

Being stuck indoors induces boredom. Boredom induces web browsing. Web browsing induces impulse purchases. I'd forgotten I'd ordered Joanne Coates's zine from ADM so it was a pleasant surprise to get an email notification that it was on its way. I'd seen the work on a number of websites over the last few years and was glad to have a hard copy of some pictures from it. It really needs a bigger publication with text to do it justice though.

When Camerasnaps tweeted a video of them going through Blood Sweat and Tears I immediately searched out a copy. Great documentary photography of the miners strike of 1984 published straight after the fact. If it had been a new publication I'd have given it a miss in keeping with my attempt to restrict my photobook buying to contemporary work, 'vintage' editions and the very occasional reprint at a more affordable price than the original of the same book on the collectors' market.

Also via Twitter I discovered The Dartmoor Collective and ordered a copy of their nice little collaborative zine, A Worked Landscape. A subject right up my street. Zines for a fiver are a great idea and should be encouraged.
 

The freeze finally came to an end today but it took a while for me to get work out of the way and make the most of the last hour of sunlight. I timed it just a bit late to catch some field and ditch work going on, and had to console myself with some static subject matter. An advantage of a flat landscape is teh ability to spot things which have appeared since a previous visit from afar. A big yellow digger by one of the pumps I have photographed numerous times had to be investigated.

I tried, and failed, to make a picture including one of the irrigation outlets but framing using the flip down screen was more trouble than I could be bothered with as time was short.

Even getting a shot of the digger on its own was tricky to frame without having something cutting into the left edge.

The greenhouses I sometimes walk by usually throw up some chance of a picture. If not of or through the glass then something reflected in it. Today was no exception. The greenhouses are used for bringing on houseplants and they are now being stocked up ready for the spring season. The trays of seedlings making for a nicely repetitive pattern.

The lack of contrast in the above picture being due to the dirty glass. The same applies to the picture below, with the addition of out of focus whitewash on the inside of the glass which I deliberately used as a device to provide a visual unifier to the picture's structure.

A reflected sunset is irresistible. So I didn't resist. Quite a few frames were exposed and only two or three worked. I tried focusing on the reflection and on the glass. The pictures with the sharp reflections were the most immediately satisfying. I've kept both versions though as I might change my mind with time. That's something I often do, keep two versions in case what initially appeals about a picture loses it's attraction as time passes.

With the warmer conditions set to stay for a while I'll be trying to get out and about more often, at more productive times. That's if work allows me to.

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The democratic medium?

Before I get into my 'thought piece' some photos. The weather this past week has been wetter than ever, so I haven't been out much - with or without a camera. Thursday I drove round my most frequent walking route on the moss to see what was what as I didn't want to get caught in one of the frequent showers. I parked up and walked back to take some photos and before I reached where I wanted to take pictures I got hit by yet another load of rain. 

The downpours had made a significant impact on land that I hadn't seen so wet before.

 

Today the rain had gone and the sun was shining, although the sun did its usual disappearing act when I went out in the late afternoon. I'd put my wellies on because the field path had been under more water than I'd ever seen on Thursday. When I got to the field the wellies were more than sufficient s the water level had dropped back to below the ditch top. It was the same on the moss with the water being mostly back in the ditches. What a difference a day made.

Sunset is getting noticeably later now making it possible to get work done and still manage an hour or more wandering with the camera. This wood often attracts my attention at this time of year when teh sun sets behind, or almost behind, it. This evening  the glow from the low sun and the towering clouds made it look as if the wood were on fire. Or maybe I just have a vivid imagination?
 

Next to no photographs, certainly none with any great utility, and loads of rain. A dismal week all round.

Having been put in a miserable mood I got all gloomy an started pondering, for the umpteenth time, who is it that looks at zines and photobooks. Who are the people making these publications making them for? Given the limited print runs of most zines and books, and let's face it anything under tens of thousands is limited, I can only conclude that the audience is predominantly (if not entirely) other photographers plus those involved in the photo-world - gallerists, collectors, curators. this most democratic of media is making publications for an elite.

If that wasn't bad enough when I look at the price of photobooks these days they are creeping up beyond what I can justify paying. I grudgingly coughed up £45 for a copy of the reprint of Paul Graham's A1 because it was a book I had wanted for some time. Okay, so it was cheaper than buying a first edition, but compared to some other books I've bought it was a bit pricey. This week I saw that his Beyond Caring is to be reissued at the same price. Another book I'd like to have on my shelves but this time I'm wavering over the price. Almost a ton for two books. I could buy a whole library of zines for that kind of cash. I'd get a load more photos to look at that way. If I'm feeling flush when the release date nears I'll probably pull the trigger. However, Beyond Caring is scheduled to be the second of a trilogy of reprints over three years, the third being Troubled Land. This one doesn't interest me. I've never been a completist so not having 'the full set' wouldn't bother me at all. No doubt the publisher's hope if that most people aren't like me and will have to buy the hat trick.

I'm sure that the collecting of sets instinct, which I admit is tempting, works for a number of small zine publishers who produce publications which are uniform in cover design. I don't really have a problem with that as zines are still pretty affordable. Although buying them on a regular basis can soon put a dent in the bank balance.

Perhaps perversely, while I'll happily cough up a tenner for a small zine I am loathe to hand a similar sum over each month for a magazine like the BJP. When it was in the region of six quid I bought it fairly regularly, but when it got into double figures (despite it's increased heft) it had to have a lot of content which interested me to part me from my cash. Eventually I gave up on it altogether. Way back when I remember (perhaps wrongly) that the BJP was very much aimed at commercial photographers. More recently it seems to be aimed at the photo-art world. Another example of catering for an elite?

If a tenner is getting into the realms of putting off a pleb like me then what to make of something flagged up on The Online Photographer? At first glance a print magazine of photojournalism would be my kind of thing. especially one harking back to the days of Life, Picture Post, and the likes of the Sunday Times Magazine's long form photo features. Even though it was US based I had to check out The Curious Society. Particularly as it is fronted by Kenneth Jarecke.

Great photography about important stories in a well produced magazine. What's not to like? How about $300 for four issues? Again I ask; Who is it for? It can only be fore photoworld insiders and middle class elites. It makes £45 for a book look like excellent value.

Maybe I've got it all wrong. Maybe I'm misjudging the average disposable income. It still doesn't seem to me that it's a good way to get photojournalism out to the masses. Which surely is what photojournalism used to do. If the venture succeeds with it's business model then it might succeed in its aim to pay photographers properly, as they used to be paid before print media began to be squeezed by the internet. But is that enough? I don't think so. Pictures like that need to be seen by millions, not thousands. I can't see it expanding the audience, just as I don't see worth projects like Small Town Inertia making a difference when it's audience is, once again as far as I can see, predominantly that photoworld elite.

Naturally I can't put forward a better way of doing any of this, but it does all seem a little futile and incestuous to me.

Locks and bridges

Seeing Bill Robertson tweeting pictures of bridges on the northern reaches of the Lancaster Canal gave me the prod I needed to start on a long considered look at my local cut. Although I've taken plenty of photographs along it's length over the years I've never made a concerted effort to document it. On Saturday afternoon I paid a short afternoon visit to the last lock to see if I could find a way in to start a project. It would be a handy, as in nearby, alternative to the moss seeing as there won't be much more to photograph there for a month or two. Besides, having an alternative might revitalise me for a return to the flatlands.

The day had turned misty by the time I got out, which didn't bother me. Winter can be pretty miserable so no need to make shiny happy pictures. How to approach the subject? As always it's the choice between scenic or formal/geometric/abstract for me. But always fairly prosaic.

Away from the locks canals can be fairly boring, as in lacking variation, until a bridge is arrived at. My initial idea was to document locks and bridges. So that was how I started to formulate a plan.

Plans and me don't go together well. I can make them, no problem. That was what I did. Found a map of the canal and worked out where to go to photograph each lock and bridge. Saturday dawned sunny but I had work to do. When I got to the cut I discovered what I already knew. Mornings are probably the best time to take photos along most of the canal as it runs north-south and the towpath is mostly on the east side. At this time of year the sun would be shining along the canal after noon. With it also being low in the sky as we near the solstice that limited my options. It did provide some benefits though, as in highlighting texture and providing silhouette opportunities.

 

At the time I felt like I'd made a lot of good pictures. Looking at them on the screen told a different story. Mostly dreck. There ended the project! Not because the pictures were rubbish but because it was relying on following a plan. If I am going to start a canal project it's going to have to take a different line of attack.

In terms of pictures taken the above is about my lot for the week. A couple of good technical things have come out of this last week's dismal efforts though. One day I deliberately took a different lens along with me to accompany the 35-150 which I thought was a bit 'cool'. I took a couple of photos using the same settings on the other lens and the zoom and inspected them on the computer. In a 'blind' test the zoom actually looked to have made a slightly warmer picture. 

The other thing is that I took both that zoom and my wide zoom on my Saturday ramble. For photographing the locks and bridges the wide zoom was useful. I suspected it might be because on the Friday 35mm had proved a bit limiting. The reason being that space at the locks is often cramped where the best vantage points are. Plans to chop in the wide zoom are on hold for now.

Sunday was a dismal day of rain. Once work was done I was at a loose end. Twidling my thumbs I decided to grasp the nettle that is my meanygate project and sort through 3,000 pictures to try and put some sort of order to at least some of them. This I managed by selecting out the more geometric fieldscapes. After two or three passes through the initial selection I now have it whittled down to 108. I've put them into 'contact sheets' and am letting them brew for a while before having another go at editing them down to, probably, a zine format.

While going through the files I realised that there are more pictures of fieldwork that I'd imagined. Editing those down will be the next task. Depending how both edits go I'll either make two zines or one zine of the geometric pictures and a larger book of a combined edit. I must say that a grid presentation of the geometric pictures could work well. Trouble is that grids are difficult to present at a meaningful scale as some of these pictures need to be viewed at A4 or larger to see the important finer detail.

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Zines, zines, zines

 It's easy, they're cheap (affordable), and I'm a sucker! With photobooks reaching the prices where they are, for me, in the luxury purchase category zines are becoming my preferred manner of acquiring collections of photographs. Recently there's been a few appear which fit my rough collecting requirements. British rural subjects.

The first two (or six...) arrived the other week and are different in character. Village Lockdown is a response to the ongoing Covid-19 crisis as experienced in an Anglesy village, and so extremely contemporary. Agri[Culture] is a set of five zines, one being an introduction to a long term project by four photographers whose work appears in the other four zines. Country Show arrived a few days ago and represents a selection from another long term project by Paul Russell.

I've mentioned before that I'm not one for collecting series of publications or complete oeuvres of work. That's why Village Lockdown is the only one of ADM Publishing's Collated Observation series, it's number 02, that I've ordered. So far. This doesn't mean that others don't interest me, they just don't fit my current buying/collecting strategy. Such as it is!

In some way this one is half way to being a book rather than a zine. It's the same format as my poultry publication, which is more book than zine, but slimmer of page count. I'll be honest, I bought it primarily for the picture of a sheep framed by a goal post on a playing field. That there was another sheep photo elsewhere was a nice bonus. The photographic style is what I'd class as 'contemporary documentary'. A mix of empty scenes and portraits with hints of surrealism and strangeness.

Agri[Culture] is from the Wideyed Collective and has a different feel to it. As you'd expect from photographs made by different people the pictures cover a range of approaches. There's a definite concept to the whole production which has the feeling of being made as art containing more than photographs by the Wideyed Collective - Lucy Carolan, Richard Glynn, Louise Taylor, Nat Wilkins. There are facsimile pages from show programmes, old photographs and reproductions of visitor book pages from exhibitions of the Agri[Culture] pictures.

Paul Russell's project is one that I have been aware of for some time. The zine is pretty straightforward collection of photographs from the project. Stylistically I'd put the pictures in the surreal/humorous street photography arena.

Having this lot arrive in a short space of time raised a number of issues for me, ones which I often exercise my limited reasoning upon. How do we go about photographing 'the rural'? Who are the photographs for? And who the hell are zines for?

The last two questions are the ones are, I think, answered differently by the three publications. Wideyed have put their pictures on display at rural shows, they have engaged with the people likely to be in and to see the pictures. That must, therefore, be their intended primary audience. The other two are maybe aimed more at a photographically aware audience - if my reading of the styles used in the pictures are any guide. But what about the zines? Where they are promoted determines who is going to be come aware of and buy them.

Photographers are people who are likely to buy zines and books of photographs. But are other people? people who might connect with the photographs, or who might be enlightened by seeing them. I don't think it's enough to make photographs which only photographers are interested in seeing. There needs to be a way to get the pictures out to a wider public, or at least give them back to the kind of people who appear in them. So far my poultry book has been bought by poultry fanciers, and I'm pleased to say one copy is now in the archive of a poultry club. That alone has made the exercise worthwhile for me.

The rest of my zines, save those destined for swaps (which falls into the other photographer audience) and ones given away, remain unloved by anyone. Some of that is due to my inability to get motivated to promote them, some to the fact I only got a few of them printed. A few I've done just one or two copies for myself. I have to admit that giving zines away to people who appear in them feels right to me.

So what of my latest zine?

This one is a combination of shots from two loose projects which I realised could work together to make my point more strongly, with a touch of humour to lighten the cynicism. I suspect it's appeal, if any, will be to photographers or other 'creatives' as it's more conceptual than most of my other zines. Click here for a flip-through. At some point I'll put it up for sale at a bargain price. Not that I expect to sell any...

Making this zine was as much an experiment in design, I used full bleed on all pages, as it was a chance to try to make a point using pictures and words. Another zine I've made for an impending swap also combined pictures from two projects and was a chance to try some other design elements. This will be revealed when my zines have been received by my fellow swappers.

Getting out and about with a camera has been tricky of late. Short days, work commitments and foul weather have all limited my opportunities to look for anything. The moss is quiet due to the season and the state of the sodden land. This has driven me to go looking elsewhere.

A week ago the wind dropped and the sun shone so I went for a long wander round a nearby village and through the potato yard from the opposite direction to my first visit.

I'd been meaning to take some photographs of the closed down animal feed supplier's for sometime and that day the light was just right.

Leaving the village there was a light shower but after that the rain held off. I covered a lot of new ground and found some things worth taking photographs of. Whether they'll prove useful for anything remains to be seen. 

When I eventually got to the potato yard it was deserted, which was handy. However the sun was low and bright making life difficult with those harsh shadows landscape photographers seem to love. Give me a bright overcast any day.

One day I might get round to starting on my 'Leek & Potato' project...

Feeling very frustrated at only having taken product shots I braved a damp evening early last week to see if I could get anywhere with my village after dark pictures. The moon was waxing near full and there was a stiff breeze blowing clouds across the sky. I was forced into stratospheric ISO values and the accompanying noise, but as that's already part and parcel of the existing pictures it didn't bother me.

The intention has always been for these pictures to be displayed small and in black and white. A couple of the pictures worked quite well. Better than the ones I took on a previous nocturnal walk when the tarmac was dry and the moon minimal. F\or once it really is all about the light. For in teh dark there are no pictures without light somewhere in the frame. One thing I learned is that 35mm isn't quite wide enough. I'll be back on the 28mm in future.

Friday saw me dropping my car off for its annual service, which gave me time for a long walk to the post office. I took a camera along with me and saw one picture which I like. Definitely a candidate for my ongoing, maybe a zine sometime, Home Range project.

My car had to be kept in overnight and it was late afternoon by the time I got it back on Saturday. I took it, and a camera, for a spin in the vague hope of seeing something to photograph before the month ended. It felt like a wild goose chase until a lost ball saved the day. Number 490. ten more and I can give up!

Not far away as I battled against a strong wind walking back to the car I almost grabbed a good sheep picture. Alas I failed to alter the aperture which I'd stopped right down to both underexpose the sky and create a starburst trying to photograph than ugly tern sculpture again. It's poorly timed and there's a lot of noisy shadow recovery. Typically it was the best starburst of the lot too. Then the clouds covered the sun and I had lost another chance. Hey ho.

November has kicked off with another wander somewhere different for me between outbreaks of rain. I parked up in the same place as for the feed merchant photos, but took a different route to photograph something else which I wanted to record. A former petrol station turned car wash and café, destined to become housing by the looks of things. I made eight of the photographs into a grid.

That's the state of play as a second lockdown approaches. At least this time there is no time limit being applied to our outdoor exercising, and a short degree of travelling for the purpose seems to be allowed. I'm still floundering around as I search for a project to keep me interested. I probably should knuckle down to organising a couple of older projects into zine or book form when work quietens down and the rain falls. But new projects are much more fun!

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