I recently finished another book project, “Fragments Red.” This volume will be the first of a seven-volume project, each pairing photographs with reflections of different sorts.
Working on the first volume of Fragments. The fourth draft.
A handful of drafts, each with a number of changes. Then there was the layout and design issues, where to put gatefolds, how to bind them, solving pagination issues. It was all so much fun.
A pile of drafts of volume one of Fragments, and some early printed pages.
After I spent a evening or two printing the pages, I made a jig to make drilling the holes in the pages easier and consistent. Then I painted some covers, found some matching thread to use for the binding (a version of “Japanese stab binding”), and sewed them up. Soon I had a dozen or so booklets.
Final copies of Fragments Red, with hand-painted covers and hand-stitched binding.
It took a long time, but I find something so satisfying about making something. Now off to start working on volume two, Fragments Orange.
I find physical books comforting. Each one is a statement, somebody somewhere saying “I was here. I made this.” Books are human. By almost any measure they are less convenient, take up more room, and weigh more than digital versions. They require shelves. They collect dust and boring insects. It’s not difficult to take one or maybe two with me, but more than that becomes challenging. Because of my own personal relationship with books, I don’t write in them. If I find something I want to remember, I have to write it down on paper. So I need a pen and paper or a notebook whenever I read.
Still life #240331.1.
I do not own a dedicated ebook reader. I can’t imagine ever owning one. Not being able to turn a page would drive me mad. I do read articles on a tablet. And I annotate those articles. I find it incredibly convenient and easy. I can take hundreds of articles with me anywhere I go — my tablet never seems to weigh any more no matter how many articles I transfer to it. Sure, I never need more than a couple articles, but since I can take them, why not?
Still life #240331.2.
Books and ebooks make me think of cameras and photographs. I can take thousands of pictures on my digital camera. I can take copies of every one of those pictures with me on my phone. It never gets any heavier. But somehow not being able to flip through photographs leaves me unsatisfied. Pinching and scrolling might allow me to see details I wouldn’t see in a photograph, but I don’t know that my experience has improved. I don’t enjoy holding my phone for other people to squint at, and I don’t enjoy squinting at other people’s phones.
Still life #240331.3.
I will not likely examine every photograph I print, just as I probably won’t read carefully and remember every book on my shelves. But I like having those books there on my shelves, organized according to my own idiosyncratic system, ready to pull down when I want. I like having boxes of photographs, organized according to my own idiosyncratic system, ready to sort through whenever I want. When somebody asks, I can pull down a book and point out something, or I can pull out a photograph and show that person something.
Still life #240331.4.
I also enjoy the process of making photographs, just as I enjoy the process of making books. Everything I make could never progress beyond some digital artifact — I always use a digital camera, I could compose on a computer, I could assemble documents that combined text and images, I could make PDF or EPUB files. But that would be, for me, unfulfilling. Some days, I use a film camera, some days a digital. Some days I confine myself to a digital process. Some days I stick to analog. Most days, regardless of how I get there, I make books or partial books and fragments of books. I have boxes full of books and possible books. Rumor has it that making things with my hands is good for my brain, but that’s not why I do it. I do it because I find physical books comforting. I do it because it’s my way of saying “I am here. I made this.”
I often think of photographs in collections or series, linked to a single subject (e.g., an idea, place, time, experience). Given my preference for printed, physical photographs, I increasingly try to imagine a project in the form of an artist’s book. Artist’s books are not restricted by the format of a traditional book, sequential pages glued (or sewn) together. Instead, an artist’s book gives me the chance to play with form (accordion books, folding books, etc.). By taking advantage of these different forms, I can encourage people to imagine different ways to think about the relationship between photographs.
PBα #0.
Recently I was playing with what I’ll call a “panel book” (“flap book” or “flag book” might be good terms as well, but let’s not dwell). In this initial experiment, three series of eight photograph-sentence pairs are arranged so that the reader can flip through each panel individually. The reader creates the series by flipping between photograph-sentence panels.
PBα #1.
The book is an unusual shape, very narrow and tall at 2.75″x16″. The pages are stitched together inside a heavy stock cover. The paper I used for the pages was a bit thick (fortunately, I have since purchased some thinner paper). It took some planning to get the layout correct so that the printed pages would be in the correct order when folded and sewn. But now that I’ve figured it out, I’ll certainly be making more — I’ve already got PBβ planned.
Parts for some hand-made books — pages, covers, and glue.
I create things I need to create. I guess in some sense I make things for somebody else, though not for some specific somebody else. For me, creating something and leaving it in the world completes the process. The dopamine rush comes from making and leaving, not from some affirmation or condemnation in the form of likes or dislikes, follows or unfollows, thumbs up or thumbs down.
Recently finished hand-made books, soon to be left somewhere.
I guess I would call this a type of a-social media.
I had an appointment in the city the other day. Given the train schedule, I would either arrive about 45 minutes early or 5 minutes late. I opted to arrive early so that I could spend half an hour or so taking pictures in the beautiful train station.
Urban #230510.0
The station was bustling with people — commuters, students heading home for the summer, tourists arriving in the city. In the 30 minutes I spent in the station, I took a bunch of photographs that I will assemble into a small book, “30 Minutes in 30th Street.”
Urban #230510.1
Once I make a bunch, I’ll leave them in local coffee shops and Little Free Libraries in the area. Just the latest in my pamphlet and limited editions projects. Let me know if you want one.
The vagueness of a daily photography project or the magnitude of a “365 project” has always put me off. A more finite, one still life each day for a month, worked better. Even that project, however, lost some of its appeal by the end:
However, I have largely disliked this project. I find it dull. I have fallen into the habit of thinking that making the single photograph (which I do each evening) is sufficient. As long as I do that, I’ve accomplished something for the day. Consequently, I find myself taking fewer photographs as I wander with my camera. As if I’ve replaced taking photos of the world around me with taking my daily flash photo.
The monotony was both too boring and not sufficiently compelling. As I said at the end of that project, maybe something more focused — my version of Micheal Beirut drawing his left hand every day, or Joseph Sudek photographing things in his window. An important aspect of such a daily project, for me, is prompting me to look at the world in new ways. Trying to capture that aspect, I have been working on a daily project this past month: “One Thought Per Day.”
The book I made in which to record one thought each day. That thought becomes the seed for that day’s photograph.
I made a little booklet, a sort of diary. Early each day I write a thought, sometimes a question, on the day’s page. From that thought I generate a single word. That word guides me as I look for a scene (I don’t get to stage it — I must find it) that relates to the day’s word/thought. I get to take one picture.
The thought I had for April 16, which guided me when I took that day’s photograph.
The page above shows the thought for April 16, 2023. Posturing, pretending to be something I am not, was the thought that I sought to find as I went through the day. I found, standing on a windowsill in the department lounge, a small articulated mannequin (why an IKEA mannequin is in the lounge I can’t imagine). It became the day’s photograph.
Still Life #230416
At the end of the month I will print the day’s on a page the precedes the day’s photograph, and then assemble them into a booklet (the same dimensions as the diary I use to record the thoughts). In the end, I’ll produce a small booklet, 2 1/2″ x 4 1/4″, of about 60 pages — 30 thoughts and 30 photographs, which I will hand bind.
For me, the combination of thinking, writing, searching, and photographing has been really productive. Guided by an idea or thought, I have looked at the world around me for scenes that somehow capture that thought. I have found that I spend more time thinking about the world as I move through it. I don’t know if I have taken more pictures because of it, but I think that I’ve put more thought into most of those pictures.
I also just love making things, material things. I enjoyed making the little booklet in which to record my thoughts. I am looking forward to making the booklet filled with those thoughts and the photographs they generated.
As with most of my projects, I will likely make a handful and leave them places, cafes, Little Free Libraries, benches, wherever. I’ll probably send some to random people as well. For me, that is an important part of my entire project. Casting whatever I make out into the world (Nick Tauro Jr.’s version of this is brilliant — if only I had an old newspaper box).
When I first made pictures, I would say in words, out loud to others, or silently to myself, “I am going to make a picture of _______ .” Then, I would go about making the picture. The result was second hand and non-visual, a substitute for the words. It was not vivid and exciting
I have begun to sort my photographs of flowers into groups. I then print a few of the images and assemble them into little pamphlets, each organized around a particular flower. A recent pamphlet focused on a few photographs of red roses.
Draft title page and back page with colophon. Printed on cheap, copy paper.
Like all of these pamphlets, this one is short. Three photographs pasted onto the pages. Very little text, limited to the first page. And like all my book/pamphlet-making efforts, this one went through a handful of drafts. Revising the text. Testing different proportions for the photographs. Printing both the text and the images on different papers.
Marked up draft of a spread from a pamphlet I recently created.
I find the process fulfilling. Something about producing something that, for me, makes photography so much richer than locking it away in some digital prison where images go to die in the social-media doomscroll.
A spread where I test out a different size image. I like this one better.
The process it iterative and full of mistakes. How many times have I pasted the wrong photograph on a particular page (as above and below)? How many times have I misassembled the pages, or misprinted them? For any normal person, I’m sure this process would be frustrating. But for me the promise of sharing my work, giving something to somebody, even if I don’t know that person, nourishes my creativity.
Heavy paper cover of final draft of pamphlet.
This particular pamphlet/study grew out of a bouquet a neighbor gave us. They were out of town when their monthly flower arrangement was delivered. They told us to take and enjoy them. I photographed the roses from the bouquet as they opened and browned and wilted. I selected three photographs for this pamphlet.
First pages of pamphlet with corrected text and photo with longer proportions (in this draft I pasted the first two photographs on the wrong pages — oops).
I drafted some text that linked the photographs, and printed and bound the pamphlet, with red thread because that seemed best suited for the photographs.
Central pages, showing rose image and red binding thread (in this draft I pasted the first two photographs on the wrong pages — oops).
I left a copy in my neighbor’s mailbox as a thank you for the bouquet. She texted to let me know she got the pamphlet and loved it — that was kind of her to say.
I don’t know how many of these I will make, maybe a few dozen copies. These are another of the “limited editions” I create, prompted by somebody or something and limited because I think there’s a small and finite audience for them. But I’m always willing and able to print more. When I have enough of these pamphlets, I’ll print an entire set and bind them all together into a book. But that’s a project for another day.
I make “limited edition” books, something between art books and photo books. They are often experiments that will never move beyond my work table, hence the “limited edition” label. I play with format, with layout, with folding pages or cut pages. Some are little more than pamphlets. I always learn something from these books.
This “Ashford Farm in Photographs, 2021-2022” is another type of book. This type I tend to make for somebody I know or someplace I frequent. In this case, I assembled photographs I had taken while at Ashford Farm, a local horse farm. Over the past couple years I had spent a number of days there watching the riders and looking around the farm. I had taken pictures of horses in their stalls, people riding horses, kids in the summer riding camps, and other parts of the farm that seemed interesting to me. These episodic books are “limited editions” insofar as I suspect only a very small number of people will be interested in them.
Ashford Farm in Photographs, 2021-2022 first draft title pageDraft pages with notes, from an early draft of “Ashford Farm in Photographs, 2021-2022.”
Like all such books, “Ashford Farm in Photographs, 2021-2022” went through a number of revisions in my head before I got around to printing a draft. For me, printing and assembling a draft is essential, even if the draft is small and printed on cheap copy paper. I have to see the sequence, thumb through the pages, test the folding pages and see how partial pages work.
When I’ve worked out the initial problems and arranged the pages the way I want, I tend to print a full-size draft.
Ashford Farm in Photographs, 2021-2022 another draft title pageOne of the pages in the draft of “Ashford Farm in Photographs, 2021-2022”Fold-out page before folding out, in a draft of Ashford Farm in Photographs, 2021-2022.Fold-out page after folding out, in a draft of Ashford Farm in Photographs, 2021-2022.
I spend a day or so looking at this draft just to see how it feels, especially things like format and dimensions, and to catch the last problems or issues that have thus far escaped my notice. I also think about things like binding, covers, and paper. When I’m happy with the draft (or no longer unhappy with it), I print the final version and assemble the book.
The final cover of “Ashford Farm in Photographs, 2021-2022.”Tack hanging in door from the final version of “Ashford Farm in Photographs, 2021-2022.”A horse looks out of its stable, from the final version of “Ashford Farm in Photographs, 2021-2022.”A horse walking in a ring, as seen through the fence, from the final version of “Ashford Farm in Photographs, 2021-2022.”
For “Ashford Farm in Photographs, 2021-2022” I assembled 51 photos I had taken last year and this year. Landscape orientation with a number of fold-out pages seemed ideal. The pages would be large enough to accommodate both landscape and portrait photos, and the fold-outs would let me include some 16×9 proportion shots. I used a binding (often referred to as “Japanese Stab Binding” though also similar to the binding used on “Chinese-style notebooks”) and cover that echoed utilitarian notebooks. I used a smooth, bright matte paper for a couple copies and bamboo-washi paper for another. Each copy is unique — not only did I print them on different paper (my favorite was the Awagami bamboo paper, mainly because of the feel), but I also used different thread for the stitching and in one case different stock for the cover.
Here are a few more photos from this book.
A horse looks out from its stable, from the final version of “Ashford Farm in Photographs, 2021-2022.”A young girl pausing to look at a horse in the barn, from the final version of “Ashford Farm in Photographs, 2021-2022.”Tack hanging on the wall in the tack room, from the final version of “Ashford Farm in Photographs, 2021-2022.”A stirrup, from the final version of “Ashford Farm in Photographs, 2021-2022.”
In the end, I made three copies of this book, one for me, one for a friend, and one for the people who own Ashford Farm and let me loiter and take pictures. These episodic projects exist somewhere between creativity and art. I am happy to have made this book and need not share it with anybody, hence creativity. But it does something more when I share it with an audience that might be interested, hence art.
I might make another copy or two. I might not. If you want one, let me know. Maybe we can work something out.
