Travel Photography Project

[Bletch]

I’ve been planning to make some sort of booklet/zine for quite some time. While I enjoyed putting together a photo book for the family many moons ago, I wanted to do something that felt more like me.

It was the middle of last year, I had been reading the TP Forum, I stumbled upon one of the zine-making threads, and it sparked my interest again. I had missed the deadline for the latest round, and the next one ended up being badly timed too, as I was going to be on holiday.

I knew from the off that my zine would probably have something to do with travel. It’s not like I had a shortage of photos to choose from, somewhere between 10k and 20k… maybe even 40k? I’ve never counted.
I did enjoy browsing through them, but it took ages, and I was a bit sad that I couldn’t remember taking some of the earlier ones. Old age does that. I’m just glad I can still travel and am happy to click away. I can almost see myself in the far future being shown my own photos while I’m laid in bed, being spoonfed by a disgruntled relative: “…and this is you in Oban..Oh, it's Delhi, I think. What’s with all the food pics, old man? Didn’t they have colour photos back in the 2010s?”

Taking a rest from the photos for a while, I began to look at the zine design. I knew from the start that I wanted A4 landscape. I wasn’t sure how many pages I would need, but I noted that if it ended up being quite long, I might need something other than saddle stitching - though I wasn’t too keen on that.

I designed a few templates in Photoshop showing various layouts. A favourite, on an open spread, was a full photo on the left-hand side (with or without margins), and on the right, four smaller images. However, I did want to mix things up a little, so I created five or six other templates for possible use, nothing was set in stone yet.

With summer ending, my thoughts also turned to a holiday. I wondered where I would go this year, lol.

 

[Bletch]

I picked some random photos and created a 16-page A4 zine using Mixam. This was just a test, but I was a bit worried after reading a few bad comments about the company on the forum. True to form, they mucked up the print. The zine was binned, and I made a list of other magazine publishers that might be an option in the future. I don't mind using Mixam for a practice run later, but I'm not trusting them for the final print.

Missing the forum's zine deadline was a blessing in disguise. I had gone from wanting to slap photos on a page just to see what they looked like in print to something a bit more thought out.

India was definitely going to be my chosen project for this zine; I haven't really travelled anywhere else except for a few trips to Scotland. I continued to go through my photo folders. In the end, I had shortlisted over 400 for possible use.

I again worked on the zine layout. I'm sure I will be including some text to go with the images. The more I thought about this, the more I wanted to do it. The written stuff was just as important as the photos, after all. I experimented with text boxes. These would go over the images, as I did not want text and images separate. It proved difficult, as I liked the idea of the text in one area only, but the photos had other ideas.

Bradford Zine Fair – There were two held in early October; I attended both hoping for some inspiration. I didn't really get any, but they were good days out nonetheless. I bought a few zines and chatted briefly with the table holders. I thought I might have seen a few recognisable zines on the shelf but couldn't say for sure.

Holiday – My suitcase was packed weeks ago; I love practice packing! The destination was, of course, India. This trip would just be for 17 days. For those who are curious, the total cost, including direct flights, hotels, and trains, would come to around £2300. This didn't include food, gifts, or additional non-essential things. The hotel choices were 3* and 4* hotels and guest houses.

The October holiday was looming... and browsing the photos from previous trips made me want to be there sooner.

Indira Ghandi Museum, New Delhi.

Modhera, Gujarat.

Bandhavgarh NP.

Ghandi Maidan Park, Patna.

 

[Bletch]

On returning home from India, I opened my suitcase and looked at the contents. Everything had been washed a few days before and tightly packed, making it look like I was ready for another trip! But I started to chuck out stuff that I wouldn't need next time: the extra clothes that I didn't even wear, USB cables, the spare GoPro, and the toiletries. I swear to God, the suitcase was half empty!

I also had a quick look at a proposed itinerary for my next trip in Feb 2026. I decided it would coincide with 'Holi' (the festival of colour), but I would plan it later.

It would be ideal to finish this zine before the end of 2026, as that's when my Photoshop subscription ends. I didn't really want to commit to another year's subscription, as I felt the price hike they introduced last year hurt the product—and my pocket.

I thought about doing some artwork for the zine, maybe a hand-painted cover.

Despite having an unhealthy obsession with Indian stepwells, they won't be part of the zine. There's always another time, right? For those who are unfamiliar with these strange holes in the ground, these wells - or baolis, bawdis, and vavs (yes, they have many names), trap and hold rainwater which is then used during the dry season. You can find them all over India, especially in the drier states such as Rajasthan or Gujarat. There are well over 3,000 known ones, and probably more.

Gwalior

Jodhpur

At some point I decided that India as a whole couldn't really be covered in a 20+ page zine, it would be a huge injustice. I thought it would be a better idea to pick one city, and concentrate on that. It would mean taking yet another look through all those photos and ditching the ones which were now not suitable.

A few random photos from a 2015 trip

Chitrakoot

Delhi

Mahoba

Delhi

 

[LeeRatters]

If you have that much content and you don't want to do a full book, then go for several separate zines (city or subject, etc related)

I've used Mixam. I enjoy using them, but I did have an issue with my first product - a single "booklet" for our dog we lost back in January. They did reprint free of charge though.

I have used them several times since with no issues.

 

[Mitzyboy]

One of my pet hates is how images get saved to phones or put in files on PC's, probably hardly ever to be seen again.
So I am about to embark on a photo book frenzy. I bought a photo book system form our local Permajet paper supplier and some double sided papers

I immediately ran into issues. I print my own images (Canon Pro100). The plan was to select certain favourite images from our travels. I didnt get very far with the printing when I discovered they were dark er than I expected. I suppose in retrospect that shouldnt have been a suprise, digital v print.

So now I'm experimenting. I've lowered the levels on my already calibrated monitors and it seems I have to raise the brightness on many images just to get an acceptable
print. Certainly hasnt ende up as such a simple job as I thought - its going to be quite a long involved task I think.