Hello,Ā
I have exciting news: my zineĀ āLeap!ā will be exhibited at an event called Booked 2022 in Helsinki! āLeap!ā is my first photography focused zine I put together back in January 2022 and it is a project Iām very proud of. Its interesting to see something so personal make its way into a public space. In this weekās post I wanted to share a little about this zine without giving too much away.Ā
To put it simply, Leap! is about my permanent move from Canada to Finland to live with my partner after five years of semi-long distance relationship. In other words it attempts to celebrate a new chapter in my life. Here is some info about the book:
48pages / 210mm x 133mm
Thread sewn binding
Matte paper 130gm
All of the pictures in this book have a dark tone but I think that reflects Finnish winter pretty well. I wish there were more light but it is what it is (I like this saying).Ā By contrast, I always get a warm feeling when looking at them since they are essentially ordinary everyday things that me and my partner enjoy doing, one of those being long outdoors walks in nature.
You might be wondering about the hare on the cover. There are pictures and paintings of hares scattered throughout the book. I noticed when I was looking through my archive for the initial selection of images I noticed how many pictures of hares there were. They were mostly shot through a window since, if I were to open the door it would skip away instantly. I noticed them quite often, so it probably meant something right? I sometimes like to look up symbolism and meanings for things and I read that the hare represented new beginnings. I thought it fit and I rolled with it.
This project made me realize how much I enjoyed putting images together into a book. Iāve been a book collector since my early teens, collecting books from artists I like, old and new as well as picture books. Aside from the art itself, the image placement, end paper selection, paper weight, the binding and much more are what excite me. It seemed like only a matter of time before I started making my own. I wondered for a long time why I enjoyed books so much - I havenāt come to a conclusion but it is probably has something to do with it being tactile.Ā
For those curious about cameras - I used my trusty Fujifilm XT1 with a 23mm F2 for all the images (I think). To my surprise it survived daily use in sub-zero temperatures as well as heavy snowfall!
Lastly, as much as I doubt anyone in the right area will see this (It always feels like Iām speaking into the void), hereās the information for the event just in case. The event will carry some copies of Leap! for sale as well.
26 November - 18 December 2022
MUU Helsinki Contemporary Art Centre
Cable Factory, Tallberginkatu 1 C, Helsinki
If youāre not in the area but are interested in buying a copy. Just send me a DM! The money will go to printing costs on future books or zines since Iād like to keep this ball rolling.Ā
One day Iād like to talk more in detail about how the idea developed the picture selection process as well as inspirations behind the sequencing and design (My favorite part) but for now this preview will do.
Thanks for reading my ramblings.
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Hey! Iām going to try to make posts like these once a week and see how it goes. Iāve never written my thoughts out like this before, so this is feeling a bit odd. I suppose Iāll get used to it eventually.Ā Ā
So an update from the last post... this is going to take forever. There are about 50 pages of contact sheets so far and Iām not even close to being done! Iām thinking I should pick sequences of images more arbitrarily so I donāt spend forever on this project.Ā
I took the snippets above from a random page; I said it in the last post but I love seeing images this way, it paints a much clearer picture of the particular day in the photo rather than a single nicely composed picture. This set is from 2017 and after looking at these Iām remembering little details like how the weather was like or how much my partner and I filled our bucket with blueberries. I used a heavy Pentax DSLR back then with a loud shutter sound, itās pretty funny thinking about it now as my cameras have only gotten smaller throughout the years.Ā
More paintings/drawings! I was looking at William Kleinās New York 1954 photobook (1995 english edition) last week and liked how he broke up his spreads with bold numbers. To me, they seemed a way to add variety to the book since all the pages were pretty much full bleed. I took inspiration from that and did something in the same vein but instead of chapter numbers it was drawings of different weather condition. That said, they wonāt necessarily introduce contact sheets that have specific kind of weather.
Soon one of my zines will be included in an exhibition, which Iām pretty stoked about. Itās called Leap! Iāll talk about it more next week and show a few process pictures. Hereās a little preview in the meantime.Ā
Images:
1. Snippet from LenkkiĀ
2. Snippet from Lenkki
3. William Kleinās New York book
4. Weather drawings for Lenkki made in Procreate on the iPad.
5. Leap! preview
See you next week :DĀ
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