Art of the Photo Zine

This video is brought to you by Squarespace. Welcome back everyone. In this video today, we are going to look at some of your work. I've got some awesome things that people have sent in. I can't wait. Let's go ahead and dive right in. We are going to start with Chris Smith. Chris for Smith is an awesome photographer. He has sent stuff in before. I would say he is definitely a mail time veteran. This is a new zine that he's done called Rhapsody in Green. I'm going to read you a little of his note. It says, "Hello again my Fort Worth friends. I finally bring you Rhapsody in Green for which I couldn't be more proud of. As you know, the idea came together last summer with your online zine class which I would highly recommend for anyone interested in getting the most out of their photography. The inspiration and motivation came not only from you, but also the whole roster of students. It was instrumental in the creation of this project. For me, having something tangible like a book, zine, or prints is one of the main reasons that I love photography. So Chris, there is a lot that I love about this. This came out great. I love the idea of this monochromatic sort of concept where you use the color green as the theme which takes us through a lot of different kinds of things, types of pictures. The other thing too, and I don't know if you guys noticed this, there are some autobiographical pictures in here of Chris as a kid and I love the fact that he has brought that into this as well. The cover is absolutely awesome. Chris, you should be very proud. If you guys want a copy of this, I will link up to Chris's work below. He is from Minnesota and he has a charity that he is dedicating some proceeds to. So it's an Etsy store. Definitely check this out. I've known Chris for a long time. He's a super cool guy, very creative photographer. I jokingly call him the William Eggleston of the north. Even though he's from Minnesota, he has that kind of vibe to his pictures sometimes and he is a big William Eggleston fan which I think is also cool. Anyway Chris, this came out great. So anyway, you guys check him out, support the work. All right, next up is a zine that comes to us from Andy Bosselman. This is called Melting Titanium. It's very cool. I'll read you a little of his note. He says, "Ted, I'm a 49-year-old photographer based in Denver, Colorado. A former designer, writer, and journalist, I found myself drawn deeper to photography since 2023. Initially, I found it as a way to escape some harsh realities. Since then, I've been exploring landscape, portraiture, and street photography in both digital and analog formats. As I got more involved in the Denver photo community, Samantha Johnson at Colorado Photographic Art Center encouraged me to join their biannual portfolio review. I didn't think I was ready. Trying to pull a coherent portfolio with such a broad range of images felt overwhelming. But with the help of a New York-based photographer and educator, Mary Howe, I managed to select and sequence a body of work. The portfolio review turned out to be a turning point. I got valuable feedback and it may lead to some show or publication opportunities. More importantly, it marked the end of my {quote} "messing around" phase and I'm now continuing to focus on more deliberate long-term projects. As those come together, I will have more books to share. Thank you for everything you do. " So Andy, this came out really nice. I love the design on here. I love the paper choice. It looks awesome and given your background that you were sharing in your letter, that does not surprise me. It's also interesting to me that you've only been taking photography seriously since 20 23. So that's only about 3 years. I think that some of those experiences are give you a different foundation than a lot of photographers when they start out and so it doesn't surprise me that this is really nicely done. And I really love the fact that you're sharing this journey out loud. To do a portfolio review with only 3 years behind you is very difficult. You kind of referred to it as your messing around phase and I think all photographers deal with that. I certainly did and most people I know did as well. It takes time to get some enough experience and enough work under your belt where you start going down paths of discovery. That point of departure if you will. So when you finally have things that you relate to, that you do well, that you love exploring. So those long-term projects. That's really important and I love the fact that you're documenting this. Most photographers, myself included, don't document that early. And to do a portfolio review, I commend you on doing. And I think this is going to go some really nice places for you. I really love what you've done here. The subject matter is a wide variety. I understand and you acknowledge that, but I really can't wait to see what coming up down the future. There's some really good work in here. Nice job my man. Thank you for sending. You know, this makes me think I am really excited about the wide range of stuff that comes in. I think Andy's project really is outstanding. It's very different than what Chris did and I've got some other stuff that I'm going to show you that is even more different. And I think this is one of the things that's really unique. I don't know really know how I got into this position of sharing work, but I have a lot of people that send me really cool stuff and today is no exception to this. For those of you who are interested in getting into publishing and maybe doing a zine or a book or a portfolio of your own, I do teach a zine course. It's a workshop that I do online so you can take it from home and that stretches over the course of a month. We will meet every week. We do this on Zoom. And the thing that is my favorite about this, week one, week two are the large group. Then we get into week three, we break into small groups and that's when you're going to get feedback from me on your project as well as your colleagues. You're going to get to see what everybody else is doing. And just like the show when I do this here, the range of work is always very impressive when we go into class type situations.

No two photographers ever do the same project and that's what makes it so inspiring to see. You have people who do portraits, people who have traveled, people who have something very specific they're working on, people who are working through something that photography ends up being kind of this therapy for. And to see the choices people make visually is always really exciting. So if you are interested in taking this class, if you have a project you want to work on, this would be a awesome vehicle for it. I will put a link in the description below. We have two coming up. There's going to be one in June and another one in the fall that starts in September. So I hope you guys would join me on that. And without further ado, let's get some more work. All right, so next up we have this beautiful portfolio of black and white images. This comes to us from Max Cooper who is a photographer based in North Carolina. This is called Bent Creek and Max writes, "Dear Ted, here's a little book I made a few years back. I gave up newspaper work in the mid-teens when my son was born and have since had a relatively quiet life shooting weddings and fly fishing. But you can't turn the journal thing off. This work feels a lot closer and quieter than photographing presidents and disasters, but it's honest and I'll stand on that. This was my first real attempt and it has its flaws, but overall I'm pleased with it. Sold out my first very small run. This one you're holding is the last. I'm thinking of a second volume. There are miles of this creek left to wade. All the best and thank you for holding the line. Max. " Max also notes in the intro to this that these are all analog photographs that were developed in caffenol. And so I think this is a really cool project. Max, this came out great. Black and white, as you know, when you're using print-on-demand services is a little bit tricky. You tend to, if the printer is not calibrated right beyond the artist's control, you kind of get these shifts that go towards green or sometimes a magenta cast. Everything in here looks really good. You should be very proud of this. In fact, I am sorry you sold out of this. I would consider ordering some more because I will link up to you in the show description and there might be somebody out there who wants to get this and I would love to see a second volume. I think that would be really cool. Man, this is awesome work, very different from photojournalism, but I love the fact that this is something that is very meaningful to you. Max also stated a few things in his note here that I didn't read just a minute ago where he was expressing a frustration with things like Instagram and social media and look, we all feel it. Things like this are very important. This is work that matters. Matters to you and it's going to matter to somebody else and it's finding that audience. And man, you did an outstanding job on this. This is a really beautiful zine and you should be very proud. I want to see more and that's about the best compliment that I can give anybody. So keep at it and man, really good work. Okay, I have some more stuff that I want to share. We're going to get to an astro project which is unusual because I don't get a lot of astro work sent in. So this is very cool. But real quick, I want to give a shout out to our sponsor this week were the awesome folks over at Squarespace. How easy is it to build an amazing website in a matter of minutes? Squarespace has you covered. It's dead simple. Head over to Squarespace, hit get started. You can start by selecting from an impressive collection of customizable templates or you can do what I do, build your own. Something unique because, you know, you're not like other websites. Give your site a name. Next, you can build your home page. We'll start with a few preset layouts just to get us going. Want to sell products like books or prints? Well, you can feature those on your home page. Create a few more sections if you want. Let's also give it a color palette. There's a whole bunch to choose from. Just get us started. We can change this all later. Next, let's select the typography choices. Welcome to your website. Everything is set up and it's all ready for you to customize. Squarespace is built on Fluid Engine, the next generation of website design. Select edit and Fluid Engine allows you to drag, place, and resize any element on the page. You can snap these to a grid. You can make them float on top of one another. You can free form however you like. You can even preview and adjust how the site looks on either desktop or mobile. The layouts are independent. Of course, you'll want a portfolio for your work. Creating an image gallery is as easy as dropping a folder of images on your web browser. Once uploaded, you can drag to reorder, customize the look, and Squarespace writes all of the code for you. Everything just works — and it looks fabulous. Want to sell your own prints, books, or zines? Squarespace has the capabilities to not only set up your online store and collect payments, but they also give you all the tools that you're going to need to be successful. Managing shipping and payment options, manage your orders, engage with your customers. They even give you the tax tools that you need to keep things organized and stay compliant. You should try Squarespace for yourself. It's absolutely free. No credit card required. Just go to squarespace. com/aop, sign up for that free trial. If you decide Squarespace is right for you, I can save you an additional 10% on your order by using offer code AOP on checkout. That's right. The code is AOP. So stop procrastinating. Go build your website today. And I want to give a special shout out and thanks to Squarespace for sponsoring this video. So, next up is a zine that comes to us

from a photographer named Shawn McDonald. This is called Logged Out. I love the title. It is a zine of surf photography. Uh this is really quite good. He enclosed a note also, which reads, "Hello Ted. It was about 2 years ago when social media began feeling a touch hollow to me regarding photography and I began to look for alternatives. Your YouTube channel and specifically your zine reviews were a huge inspiration for me moving forward in my photographic journey. I'm willing to bet this is your first zine submission featuring surf photography, but I hope that my love for all types of photography is evident in my ocean work. This zine was shot over the course of one summer in my home coast of Panama. Summer here is December through May. I hope to continue to produce more zines like this as opposed to sharing my own work on social media and your channel is an important part that allows photographers to work together to be able to share our work in a more tangible and fulfilling way. I hope this zine makes the cut and opens your eyes to some photos for some angles you've never seen. Sincerely yours, Shawn. " Shawn, this is outstanding. You should be very proud of this. Believe it or not, it is not the first submission, but like everything else, you're going to do it in your own way and put your voice and your own stamp on this. I think you've done that very successfully. I love some of your shots where you're using the wave to kind of subframe in the horizon. You do it a couple times in here, but it doesn't get stale or old. Uh I think that there's a lot that you're doing right in here. I love your sense of pacing. When you have two images up on a page, I like the way that you're producing spreads. the images have a dialogue with one another. I think you're doing a lot of things right. The only thing that I would suggest on here, and I know I sound like a broken record cuz I've said this a billion times before, but when you're going through the zine and you're holding it this way and all of a sudden I come to a spread, it's not really a spread, it's just a big image where you're requiring the viewer to turn. I'm not a big fan of that. I think it's probably acceptable in a smaller zine like this cuz it's not a lot of effort, but it just kind of what it does is it psychologically breaks the rhythm that you're setting up and all of a sudden I I'm presented with something where I'm not thinking about your next image, I'm thinking about wait a how am I oriented here? Other than that, I think there's another way you could handle that in here. This is very well done and you should be very proud of it. The color came out great on here. Uh and this is awesome. And I also love that you kind of mentioned in here that I get this a lot that uh people are replacing social media by sending me books and uh I think you probably should do both, but uh I'm happy to have a hand in that if at all possible and uh I will link up to Shawn's work in the description with everybody else. Please support your fellow colleagues and uh the beautiful work that they're producing. So, Shawn, thank you for sending. All right. So, Astro, this comes to us from Bob Vandervluten, who is from Belgium. I hope I'm saying your last name right. Uh this is an astrozine. I'll read you a little of his note. He says, "Dear Mr. Forbes, my name is Bob and I'm a photographer based in Mechelen, Belgium. I have been following your channel for quite some time now and recently I've been diving into your book, which has been both inspiring and a welcome reminder to visit revisit certain techniques. Thank you for sharing your perspective. I've enclosed a copy of my zine In Search of Stars Despite the Light, a project exploring the presence of light pollution in Belgium and the ways we can still connect with the beauty of the night sky. Working on this series meant driving through the night seeking moments of stillness and awe. It brought me quiet reflection and a renewed appreciation for what the night reveals despite the distractions of artificial light. This is the first work where I feel the images came close to expressing what I saw and how it made me feel. While I know there's always more to learn and refine, I have tried to resist the urge to chase perfection endlessly. " So, Bob, this is a really interesting project and it's also a very difficult project, I'm sure as you know. Uh and I mean the difficulty in getting this to reproduce how you envision it onto paper. Uh one of the things, and I know you guys are probably already noticed this in the videos, is that a lot of these images it's really tough to make out stars and I think there's two things stacked against you. One, because it's a project exploring light pollution and still being able to see the stars in the dynamic range that's involved with that. And then also getting that to reproduce onto paper. And it's interesting to me because this is still difficult modern age because paper really only gives you about eight usable stops of dynamic range. And so, it's really tough uh when you're balancing light like this. Some photos work a lot better than others, but I feel like you're making compromises a lot of times where you're either going to side on the shadows or side for the stars. And so, I would definitely experiment some more with that in post-production. I like the idea of having the circular night sky image that it precedes the uh the following spread that you've got, but it's really tough to read some of these. And so, I would really kind of work on pushing that. Other than that, man, this is a cool idea. I love that you found so much solace in photographing this and making this. And I want to encourage you to keep it up. And if you have any questions, please email me, but I think that uh that's really the one thing that's going to hold you back a little bit on this is really making it obvious to the reader what it is that we're looking at. But um anyway, you've got a great start in this and that's the only suggestion I would make. So, man, I really appreciate it. Thanks for sending. I will link up to Bob's work below. All right. So, next up is this zine, which comes to us from Herbie Paps. This is called Random Shots from New Jersey, Volume 1. And I may owe Herbie an apology here because he didn't write me a note. It's actually printed on the inside cover, but he talks about

this being done in 2020. Now, sometimes things slip through the cracks. If that's the case, I apologize, but anyway, he writes, "Hi Ted. Since July 20, 1953, I've walked many steps, traveled many miles, and seen many things. Early on, I could see and feel things that other people didn't. It made me think that I was odd and instead of asking what was wrong with them, I wondered me. I kept my thoughts to myself and I continued seeing and feeling what others did not. All of these years, I still do. The year 2020 has been so difficult for my community and the world. These images are just a few of many that I saw last year and I wanted to share them with you. I hope this collection finds you healthy and safe. " And he also goes on to mention that all the images here were shot on film. Herbie, this is really nice. Uh I love the randomness of this, believe it or not. I think your spreads are interesting, how the images relate to one another and how you create a dialogue out of what you're calling some random shots from New Jersey. My one suggestion for you, my friend, is your title. I would think of something a little different. The reason that I say that is because in your letter, you really suck my interest in when you're talking about you saw and felt things that others didn't and thought it was something wrong with you or whatever. And I kind of wonder, it obviously pertains to the work or you wouldn't have written it in here. If you changed your title into something that was slightly more poetic, I think you could get that same interest right off the bat with the title. And I think this would be something that a lot of people would be really interested in and I would give you my example that I love to give. Um let's just imagine for a second the most famous photo book probably ever made, well, one of them, was Henri Cartier-Bresson's The Decisive Moment. If he had named that book Henri's Greatest Hits, uh I think it probably would have had a very different uh cachet and appeal to people. And so, the title is important and I would work with that a little bit because I think you're onto something interesting. And like I said, I know you mentioned that you shot these in 2020 and I forgot to look at the postage stamp. And if it fell through the cracks, I'm really sorry. But uh anyway, I appreciate you sending. I will link up to Herbie's website below. Awesome work today. Uh this was supposed to be a rapid fire and you know me, I get to talking and that's how that goes. But if you have any questions, drop them in the comments. I will see you guys in the next video. Until then, later.