What's the purpose? If it's for you, it's fine. If you're intending others to look at it, I'd say that was more a book as I'm assuming 1 photo per page. 84 photos is a lot to absorb and would presumably take quite a while to go through in any degree of depth.Thoughts?
That's pretty much my take on it too.What's the purpose? If it's for you, it's fine. If you're intending others to look at it, I'd say that was more a book as I'm assuming 1 photo per page. 84 photos is a lot to absorb and would presumably take quite a while to go through in any degree of depth.
A "zine" to me is more a "here is my thing, and you'll get it pretty quickly" - much like it was with the music/punk zines that went around school when I was a kid. As well as being smaller and shorter, a zine, to me, is about punchy information delivered concisely.
Just my opinion though!
Price / cost and materials are also important. Zines imo are accessible and democratic, if you A5 booklet could be sold for less than a tenner, then it's a zine in my view. If your choice of presentation means that you couldn't afford to hand them out for free (to get your work out there) or you have to sell them at £20 a pop then it's not a zine.
I've been having some fun over the last week making some sh*t lo fi handmade zines
Additional thoughts.
In the day of fanzines they were photocopied. So anything of a higher reproduction standard than that wouldn't count. Likewise if it has a card cover. But that's getting picky like those silly definitions of what is 'real' street photography.
Then again print on demand is the 21st century version of photocopying. If it had been available in the 1970s I doubt it would have been shunned. Even desktop scanning and printing is better quality than photocopying.
I'm old enough to have started my self-publishing days to have done so when it was literally scissor and glue cut and paste. I can assure you had the technology everyone has access to today been available I'd have used it. Moving from a typewriter to a word processor was a huge leap in production values!. I wonder if the punk DIY ethic is now to be found on Youtube with the people using their phones to make content rather than in print media?
My personal definition of a zine would probably be small page count, stapled (saddle stitched), not intended to make a profit or necessarily break even. There might even have to be an element of self-expression and graphic design required rather than a simple album of pictures.
My sheep book has to wash its face as far as I'm concerned, and if it can raise a few bob extra even better. The zines I've made I'm happy to give away. I guess that means profit making is the dividing point!
Agreed.My personal definition of a zine would probably be small page count, stapled (saddle stitched), not intended to make a profit or necessarily break even. There might even have to be an element of self-expression and graphic design required rather than a simple album of pictures."
My first zine was a collaborative effort with the other members of the band (I was 16) and is a hilariously low tech effort with bits of paper stuck on it, typewriting accidents, handwritten inserted comments/addendums, stencils (remember those!?!) and glue that went in places it shouldn't, making a mess. It's also very much "of it's time", the time being 1985. I agree - if the technology had been there (and affordable to teenage kids with a paper round) we'd have used it too!I'm old enough to have started my self-publishing days to have done so when it was literally scissor and glue cut and paste. I can assure you had the technology everyone has access to today been available I'd have used it. Moving from a typewriter to a word processor was a huge leap in production values!. I wonder if the punk DIY ethic is now to be found on Youtube with the people using their phones to make content rather than in print media?
Additional thoughts.
In the day of fanzines they were photocopied.
Home recording has come on a little since the days of a stereo cassette recorder - even with our secondhand shop four channel mixer !My first zine was a collaborative effort with the other members of the band (I was 16) and is a hilariously low tech effort with bits of paper stuck on it, typewriting accidents, handwritten inserted comments/addendums, stencils (remember those!?!) and glue that went in places it shouldn't, making a mess. It's also very much "of it's time", the time being 1985. I agree - if the technology had been there (and affordable to teenage kids with a paper round) we'd have used it too!
We only had one copy (which I've held over the years), and couldn't afford to photocopy it, but last year I scanned them all in and made a Blurb "magazine" with it. I hunted out the other band members and sent them all a copy, so now there's 4 in circulation. It's still my favourite zine ever, but I'm still too embarrassed to show my wife
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I think it's a bit like some people using 35mm film these days. For them it's as much about the process and the tools as the end result. Maybe more so in some cases. For others the easiest way to get their intended result is the one to use.For me, the cut'n'glue then photocopy thing was OK 30 years ago, but any charm that had wore off a long time in the past.
I think it's a bit like some people using 35mm film these days. For them it's as much about the process and the tools as the end result. Maybe more so in some cases. For others the easiest way to get their intended result is the one to use.
I liked some of those I watched but the beer influenced one put me right off. Not so much the banter but his dismissal of some of the work. It is of its time. He's teamed up with Alex Kilbee a time or two since and it's starting to get a bit too incestuous Youtuber for me.Ed Thompson has recently started a YouTube Channel - it's more interesting than most photography channels imo so definitely give him a watch and a subscribe. There's one 1hr30m episode of him drinking beer with a friend and flicking through creative camera magazine!
Anyway, back to topic.. he's made a series of videos on Zines
View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UVJaVLyquiw&ab_channel=PicturesOnMyMind
View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rq0yqdJK_H8&t=323s&ab_channel=PicturesOnMyMind
And: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLqMb4nagn_1s9ckCRcfznelsKHKxqjDu_
and wanted next time to produce a more fluid, less structured document.
I think that's pretty much on the money. The meaning has changed. Certainly in the photo worldA recent blog post I found on this subject https://unitednationsofphotography.com/2024/01/07/its-not-a-zine-its-a-book/