DARIN HAYTON

Tag: Color photography

  • Making Zines

    Making Zines

    I like making things. Little things. Big things. Lately, I’ve been having fun with an 8-page zine. Printed from one piece of paper, folded, and cut, it is to me the ideal format for a short outing, or for a case study of a place. Or, I can look back through photographs I’ve taken to find a group of 8 that make a good theme.

    A color photograph of zines I have made recently.
    Some of the zines I have been making lately.

    They are easy and relatively quick to print and to fold. I use 11″x17″ sheets of paper, so that each page is about 4″x5″, large enough to showcase the photographs but not so large as to be bulky. I tweaked the layout a bit so that the cover image wraps around the front and back covers.

    Color photograph of the “Vienna at Night” zine, before I folded and cut it.
    The “Vienna at Night” zine before I folded and cut it.

    This format also gives a place to print a large photograph on the back side. It’s sort of a surprise for the person looking at the zine, and a puzzle — it seems unfolding and refolding the zine presents something of a challenge for people, which I didn’t expect.

    A color picture of the Glorietta in Vienna, which is the central image in my zine.
    A picture of the Glorietta that is the central image of the zine “Vienna at Night”

    When it is all done, trimmed, folded, and cut, the zine is the perfect size for my guerrilla art projects. I have given them to friends and handed them to people I don’t know, left them on tables and shelves in coffeeshops, stuffed them between books in libraries and bookstores, and left them on seats in buses.

    Color photograph of the cover of the “Vienna at Night” zine, showing half of the Hofburg.
    The cover of the “Vienna at Night” zine.

    I don’t know what happens to those I abandon in the world. And I don’t really care. The point, for me, is in the making and giving away (not, I stress, “sharing” which has become an essential part of the economy of likes, has become entirely transactional, and depends on knowing what happens to whatever you make).

    Color photograph of two pages in the “Vienna at Night” zine, after I folded and cut it.
    Two of the pages in the “Vienna at Night” zine, after I folded, cut, and pressed it flat.

    Sometimes I leave the house, camera in hand, looking for a coherent set of images that work well together. That was the case with the “Walking in Sacramento” or the “Alone in Philadelphia” zines — I knew an afternoon’s walk would produce at least 8 scenes I could cobble together into a zine. Other times, I draw from a few trips out and about, as in the “Vienna at Night” zines (there are two of these zines, gathering together the photographs from a few nights wandering the city late at night). In other cases, a zine emerges when I’m looking back through photos I’ve taken over a number of trips out. “Alone in Jefferson” is that type — the central image is part of a collection of photographs I’ve taken usually in Jefferson Station that highlight the loneliness of the modern world.

    Color photograph of the central image in the “Alone in Jefferson” zine. A man stands alone against a blue tiled wall. He looks towards his feet.
    The central image for the “Alone in Jefferson” zine.

    Any group of 8 photographs that cohere can become one of these little zines. Inspired by Alexey Titarenko, I took a bunch of photographs of people in a local cafe (see Ghosts in the Cafe). Turns out I have 8 that work well together, so I printed them as a zine. Seems appropriate that I left a handful in that cafe.

    Black and white photograph of a spread from the “Ephemeral” zine, showing ghost like figures is a cafe.
    A spread from the “Ephemeral” zine.

    Like all of my projects, this one will last as long as I find it amusing or interesting. I will continue to print copies of these zines, and cast them into the world. If you’d like to receive a few, send me $10 and your address. I will send you three random zines. Or, offer something in exchange.

  • Standing Alone

    Standing Alone

    Increasingly it seems we live in an Edward Hopper painting. We are always alone, even in busy places. Whether we have surrendered to the glowing screen in our hand or staring down at the ground, too much of modern life is profoundly isolated and isolating.

    Man standing along a blue tiled wall. On the wall are the words Jefferson Station.
    Urban #240706

  • Fragments Red

    Fragments Red

    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.

    Color photo of a booklet, partially open to the photo of a cliff.
    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.

    Color photo of a a pile of draft booklets, and some final pages, showing a man in a subway car.
    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.

    Color photograph of a couple booklets with red covers. One is open to the title page.
    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.

  • My Sandbox

    My Sandbox

    I make things. I often use tools other people have developed, e.g., hammers (some people forge their own hammers, I don’t) and screwdrivers and saws; cameras (some people make their own cameras, I don’t) and printers and developing tanks; ovens and baking pans and measuring cups. But in the end, I use those tools to make things. I make things because I enjoy making (I also enjoy taking things apart, but that’s a different story). Sometimes the things I make are lovely and work well, sometimes they aren’t and don’t. It doesn’t matter. What matters to me (and I’m the only one who matters in this story) is I made them.

    I don’t assemble things (unless I have to).

    Urban #240309.1. A dark photograph of a corner of a courtyard, one light and a door.
    Urban #240309.1.

    Perhaps that is why I don’t have a social media presence, why I don’t write on the many very beautiful and shiny platforms that encourage writing, why I don’t share my thoughts in 280 characters, why I don’t collect images I find online into a virtual scrapbook. Such fora are not tools for making something, at least not in the way I like to make things. They might let me assemble something, and that something might be slick and look remarkably like millions of other things people have assembled — the internet is a monotonous wasteland of polished similarity, like some vast 1990s housing development that’s not going to age well or, apparently, any coffee shop anywhere.

    Urban #240309.2. A dark photograph of a doorway, two lights on either side and some cobblestones in front.
    Urban #240309.2.

    Instead, I have my little sandbox, where I build the things I want to build in the way I want to build them (to be sure, the tools I have chosen constrain what I can make — when that becomes a problem for me, I’ll find new tools). I don’t need anybody’s approval or disapproval, and I am not looking to start a “discussion” — if you want to chat, send me an email so we can meet for coffee. I don’t need anybody’s validation through comments or trackbacks. I take this position not because I have aversion to “someone else’s platform” or a fear of an algorithm or urge to be/build my own platform or worry about being the fodder for some other platform’s monetization scheme or worry my stuff will disappear. Those old chestnuts are still legitimate, I guess, but seem to privilege monetizing over making.

    I just kinda like making things.

  • Longing

    Longing

    I find the world unknowable and therefore fascinating, unfamiliar and therefore irresistible. I long for that space where life seems uncertain, where I have to revise or reject the comfortable assumptions and convictions that have structured my life.

    Urban #240311.1 Color photo of a man walking in front of a large, beige-colored building
    Urban #240311.1.

    I used to frequent a local coffee shop where I often saw a particular woman. Whenever she saw me, she would move to the table next to mine and start writing on whatever piece of paper she had available. After a few minutes, she would hand me the piece of paper covered in rapid scrawlings and signed AST, smile, and then sit silently. I don’t recall her ever speaking to me. I don’t see her any longer — the coffee shop has closed. I miss our encounters. I learned a lot from watching her and trying to understand her world, which was very different from mine. Now and then, when I’m feeling smug, I pull out those sheets of paper and look back over them.

    Urban #240311.2 Color photo of a man standing in front of a large, beige-colored building.
    Urban #240311.2.

    A few years back, an incarcerated man sent me a couple letters outlining his critique of society. Pages filled with carefully hand-written words, each letter almost typewriter perfect. Diagrams drawn with draftsman like precision. In the upper left corner, in place of a staple, an orange thread pierced the pages and stitched them together. Another encounter with a world that is very different from mine. Those letters are in the drawer with the pages from AST.

    Urban #240311.3 Color photo of a man throwing his arms up to hug a woman, who is also throwing up her arms, in front of a large, beige-colored building.
    Urban #240311.3.

    These encounters with the absurdity of life give me energy. Some unanswered and probably unanswerable longing for the unknown drives me. That longing is the wellspring of all my creativity, which might turn out to be ravings of a lunatic, but what higher purpose can there be for creativity.

  • Of Bicycles and Cameras

    Of Bicycles and Cameras

    Thumbing through a couple books recently — one a collection of photographs, one a book on improving your photographic skills – made something clear: Photographers commonly feel compelled to draw attention to their cameras and their camera settings, whether or not that information serves any purpose. I remain amused by photographers’ obsession with equipment; it reminds me of the ways cyclists sit around and talk about bicycles.

    Landscape #230615. A color photograph of water flowing through a narrow channel.
    Landscape #230615.

    If you end up in a trendy, upscale café on a weekend, chances are you’ve seen and heard the crowds of mostly guys, many of them older, sitting in lycra talking about the morning’s ride. An important part of that conversation revolves around their equipment, sometimes in subtle ways, sometimes not so subtle. One might talk about what gears he used in the sprint or on the climb. Another might talk about the stiffness of his carbon-fiber frame. Another might mention frame geometry. Cycling computers are often topics of conversation. Somebody inevitably brings up a recent review of equipment or an article about some professional’s Tour de France bike. None of this talk improves anybody’s cycling skills or fitness. So from the perspective of getting better, it’s useless. However, a significant part of their enjoyment, it seems, comes not from riding but from sitting around and talking about their bikes.

    Photographers seem to share this need to draw attention to their equipment. References to camera, lens, settings recall the cyclists talking about their gear choices for a climb. It doesn’t matter. You made it (or didn’t) to the top of the climb, just as you took the picture (or didn’t). What matters in cycling is: Did you make it to the top of the climb as quickly as you wanted? If so, great. If not, go ride more. In photography, what matters is: Did you get the picture you wanted? If so, great. If not, go take more pictures. And yet, in both the collection of photographs and the book on improving your photographic skills, captions include the location, year, camera body, the lens, the aperture, the shutter speed, and the ISO. None of that should matter, either for the viewer or the student.

    At some level I think photographers know that their equipment and settings don’t matter. After drawing attention to their equipment, they rarely even try to explain how it has affected their photographs. Even the author/photographer of the book on improving your photographic skills never refers to the camera and settings. I would expect an “educator” to explain the relevance of such information, were it, in fact, relevant. I would love to see how the camera body mattered, as if it were a choice he or any photographer would make before taking any given photograph. Imagine the photographer who sees an interesting scene, then thinks: Would this be better shot with a Canon 5D mk II or a Fuji X-T2 or a Nikon D810. I would also love to see that photographer in the wild, digging through a massive bag of gear that included different bodies and different sets of lenses and perhaps flashes. No, the camera doesn’t matter. This educator, like most of us, probably grabbed whatever camera he was using that year or on that trip, i.e., the camera he had with him. Nothing more.

    To be clear, I think we all find find equipment that for some personal reason we enjoy using. And because we enjoy using that equipment, it might help us realize our creative projects or help us become better photographers (if that’s our goal). Just as the old guys in lycra at the café don’t become better cyclists by talking about their bicycles, we don’t become better photographers by talking about our cameras.

  • Melancholy

    Melancholy

    The days grow longer, already noticeable in the evenings. I will miss the dark mornings, early sunsets, and the long shadows cast by the pale winter sun. Light this time of year is magical.

    Urban #231223.1. A color photograph of a woman sitting alone by a window, two lighted stars hang above her head.
    Urban #231223.1

    This woman sat in a small cone of warm light, shifting her gaze from the table in front of her to the darkening street outside. Now and then she lifted her cup to take a drink, absentmindedly setting it back down on the counter. She seemed content, at ease.

    I love summer’s early sunrises and long days. But I will miss winter’s somber tones. Like many, I suffer from a sort of January melancholy, not because the days are short and dark but because they grow longer and brighter.

  • Connections

    Connections

    The NY Times publishes a puzzle, “Connections,” that presents you with a grid of 16 words and challenges you to find groups of four that share something. In a recent puzzle, for example, “charcoal, ink, paint, pastel” form the group “Art mediums.”

    Perhaps I can think of photography in a similar way. Set out to make small collections, groups of three or four photographs. Each group coheres around a particular idea. That something will be totally arbitrary, idiosyncratic to my sense of grouping. “Activities that start with ‘S’,” for example, or “Things people do in a city,” or “Random group of four photos that I can group together in some trivial way,” or “Green.” Maybe such a game can guide me as I make photographs.

    I could also look back at pictures I’ve made and see if they fall into groups. Let’s try. In this little game of “Connections,” can you make two groups of three photos? What links those three photos?

    Urban #231015. Color photograph of a woman wearing a pink coat and headphones and flip flops walking up a street in front of a grey building.
    Urban #231015.
    Urban #231013.6. A color photo of a man walking in front of a wall of blue tile. The word "Station” can be seen behind him. Also behind him a woman rides an escalator up.
    Urban #231013.6.
    Urban #231013.8. Color photograph of a man leaning against a wall, looking at his phone.
    Urban #231013.8.
    Urban #231013.4. Color photograph of a woman sitting on a stone ledge in front of a building. She is looking at her phone.
    Urban #231013.4.
    Urban #231013.3. Color photograph of a woman walking along a sidewalk in front of a white wall.
    Urban #231013.3.
    Urban #231013.2. Color photograph of a man strolling into a sunny space, surrounded by shadow.
    Urban #231013.2
  • Pink Morning

    Pink Morning

    She rounded the corner with a purpose. The insistent cadence of her steps — slap slap slap slap — echoed off the buildings as she marched up the street. Was she heading somewhere or leaving something behind? Or just out for an early Sunday walk, wearing color-coordinated pink headphones, jacket, and flip flops? Whatever the backstory, she was a flash of color in the empty, grey streets.

    Urban #231015. Color photograph of a woman wearing a pink coat and headphones and flip flops walking up a street in front of a grey building.
    Urban #231015.
  • Series of Images

    Series of Images

    As I make more books and things (collections of postcards are in the works), I increasingly think of photos in series. I don’t deny the power of a single, amazing photograph, but there is a value in seeing photographs as part of a collection of related images. I have long appreciated the powerful work of Bernd and Hilla Becher. Series can be as short as a pair of photos, a diptych, or much longer series, such as 52/4.

    From a recent trip to the Great Sand Dunes I have a number of nice, single photos as well as a number of photos that work well as short series. The images are fine on their own, but work really well as a triptych.

    Landscape #230820. A triptych of color photos of sand and shadow.
    Landscape #230820.