Produce and share a Zine - do something with your photos!

Allan.H said:
first time I have done anything like this but I have a feeling it won’t be the last, have really enjoyed the whole process, now I have to get my head around Affinity publisher :wideyed:[/QUOTE]
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Me too, really enjoyed it, so much so I've ordered another, more in depth, book rather than zine from Mixam, combining words and pictures from my recent holiday on Skye. I put all that together as an affinity publisher virgin, and assuming it prints correctly I found it very intuitive once I'd got my head around the master page concept and linking text boxes. (top tip, any sections of text which are likely to overflow text boxes, type in ms word then copy into publisher and link text boxes)

So what are the dates for our next zine share :)
 
Mr Perceptive said:
I got 2 today!! Hopefully mine will be posted this afternoon.
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My wife and stepson and are route to the post office!!!

When all have been received and we pass any comments, it would be good to know which companies were used for each zine print and what paper/cover was selected.

I must admit that having done one now, I'm quite excited about doing more. This along with printing is quite addictive.
 
Got a triple delight today!

IMG_1326.jpg

I love how they are all really different, and I'm not sure how to describe the feeling of looking through these, knowing they have been carefully crafted to present their content. Humbled... respectful... enjoyment... satisfaction... All words I'd use.

I know no-one asked for it, but I thought I'd write a bit about each. I find it really useful to help my own photography if I can try and paraphrase how I feel about other people's. Spoiler added in case you haven't received yours yet or you want to do something similar without prejudice.

Phragmites, by @Ed Sutton
The only colour volume so far, and yet the single yellow/golden/brown hue that is present in all the images gives it an almost monochrome feel. I love how the font colour (and there's not much text) is chosen to match the hue of the images. I love how this could easily have been done monochrome to reduce cost, but the author thought colour to be a significant part of the work, which somehow changes it when looked at. The images are all square, and are allowed plenty of space on the pages to breathe and it was really quite calming to spend timelooking at each one. The images with movement in them appealed to me more, but I had to marvel at how difficult I'd find a subject like this. Finding a way to present this must have been trickier than it first appears. I also like the images where light has a strong interplay. There are no page numbers but images 6 & 10 contrast each other and really evoke a "feeling". Very enjoyable to look through Dave. Thanks.
Oh, and I had to look up Phragmites before I opened the cover, so I'm also slightly educated!

Walking the dog, by @Allan.H
This really made me smile, and reading the intro sets the scene as well as providing a bit of interest into the images. Knowing the self-imposed rules beforehand helps me to understand, so I quite liked that. Really liked the paper on this one and the finish to the images. All black and white, and mostly all of my favourite subject - trees :). But I think the thing that stood out the most for me, was that every image has a path leading you into it. Not sure if this was intentional, or whether it was a by-product of the rules, but the photographer could have turned left or right from the path to take a photograph but for whatever reason, didn't. I think this has left the zine with a very strong series of images that tie really well together. Adding a photo triptych of the dogs at the end was a really nice touch too and that "relaxation" of the rules for the last page made me smile as well as empathise. It's the sort of thing I'd do.
Very enjoyable.

Dinorwic - 50 years of decay, by @Mr Perceptive
The photography in this zine is really to a high standard. I am hoping it's all on digital and not getting submitted to FPoTY this month for "ruin"! The forward sets out the scene in a very simple paragraph and I feel quite sad & melancholy browsing through the images. I'm sure most people have toured the quarry/mine attractions in Wales - for me, it was as a kid, and then when I took my kids later in life. I never really took it all in properly, and this zine allows that. On the back page, David mentions the profits going to the Mountain Rescue Team, and that tells me that this photographer is someone who cares about his subject. This makes me more invested in the content. The square images, all monochrome, are tastefully black & white. No evidence of heavy PP or contrast/sharpening that one might find with this sort of subject. Very much reminds me of Fay Gowdin's work.

All in all, I think these were pretty amazing pieces of work and a pleasure to look through!
Thanks for taking the time to do it guys.
 
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Harlequin565 said:
Got a triple delight today!

View attachment 274862

I love how they are all really different, and I'm not sure how to describe the feeling of looking through these, knowing they have been carefully crafted to present their content. Humbled... respectful... enjoyment... satisfaction... All words I'd use.

I know no-one asked for it, but I thought I'd write a bit about each. I find it really useful to help my own photography if I can try and paraphrase how I feel about other people's. Spoiler added in case you haven't received yours yet or you want to do something similar without prejudice.

Phragmites, by @Ed Sutton
The only colour volume so far, and yet the single yellow/golden/brown hue that is present in all the images gives it an almost monochrome feel. I love how the font colour (and there's not much text) is chosen to match the hue of the images. I love how this could easily have been done monochrome to reduce cost, but the author thought colour to be a significant part of the work, which somehow changes it when looked at. The images are all square, and are allowed plenty of space on the pages to breathe and it was really quite calming to spend timelooking at each one. The images with movement in them appealed to me more, but I had to marvel at how difficult I'd find a subject like this. Finding a way to present this must have been trickier than it first appears. I also like the images where light has a strong interplay. There are no page numbers but images 6 & 10 contrast each other and really evoke a "feeling". Very enjoyable to look through Dave. Thanks.
Oh, and I had to look up Phragmites before I opened the cover, so I'm also slightly educated!

Walking the dog, by @Allan.H
This really made me smile, and reading the intro sets the scene as well as providing a bit of interest into the images. Knowing the self-imposed rules beforehand helps me to understand, so I quite liked that. Really liked the paper on this one and the finish to the images. All black and white, and mostly all of my favourite subject - trees :). But I think the thing that stood out the most for me, was that every image has a path leading you into it. Not sure if this was intentional, or whether it was a by-product of the rules, but the photographer could have turned left or right from the path to take a photograph but for whatever reason, didn't. I think this has left the zine with a very strong series of images that tie really well together. Adding a photo triptych of the dogs at the end was a really nice touch too and that "relaxation" of the rules for the last page made me smile as well as empathise. It's the sort of thing I'd do.
Very enjoyable.

Dinorwic - 50 years of decay, by @Mr Perceptive
The photography in this zine is really to a high standard. I am hoping it's all on digital and not getting submitted to FPoTY this month for "ruin"! The forward sets out the scene in a very simple paragraph and I feel quite sad & melancholy browsing through the images. I'm sure most people have toured the quarry/mine attractions in Wales - for me, it was as a kid, and then when I took my kids later in life. I never really took it all in properly, and this zine allows that. On the back page, David mentions the profits going to the Mountain Rescue Team, and that tells me that this photographer is someone who cares about his subject. This makes me more invested in the content. The square images, all monochrome, are tastefully black & white. No evidence of heavy PP or contrast/sharpening that one might find with this sort of subject. Very much reminds me of Fay Gowdin's work.

All in all, I think these were pretty amazing pieces of work and a pleasure to look through!
Thanks for taking the time to do it guys.
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I enjoyed those write ups, Ian. And it's always interesting to know what people make of a project. Originally I had intended making only images with movement but came to realise that would be too samey and not get across what I was seeing and feeling.

Most of the pictures were made as I walked along the same public footpath beside the reeds at Martin Mere. So another 'walking' project!

For what it's worth I've written a blog post about making my zine. https://lumbypics.blogspot.com/2020/04/a-zine-project.html
 
I got David's - Dinorwic and Dave's - Phragmites today, both great. I am really enjoying this and as Ian said above so good to see such variety and such high photographic and production standards. It's making me think I need to up my game.
 
@flook999 's arrived today and another completely different style and subject, so I've got the full set A very impressive collection of zines, thanks all.
 
<eagerly awaiting the arrival of postie>

received my second publication yesterday, this time from Mixam. More ambitious project, 27 photographs and about 7 pages of text as a bound rather than stapled softback. Printed slightly dark so something to remember next time, but over all very happy (if you ignore the 1 spelling mistake :rolleyes:). Need a new project now
 
I'm am personally blaming all contributors to this thread, I've started work on my second ever zine!! Not all the photos taken yet, but a plan is coming together and just downloaded Affinity Publisher - is that zine GAS?? I used Word for the first zine exported as a pdf, and feel I want to do something a bit slicker/flashier- and in colour this time. Really been inspired by the 4 zines that have dropped through the door so far, since we seem to be getting post every two days at the moment, I will probably have to wait until tomorrow for zine 5 - to complete the collection..

This has been a great thread and a great project. I had started printing images more seriously about 18 months ago, but its really good to group images into a collection, it gives them purpose.
 
Last 2 arrived for me today. Chris' and Colin's.

What a great little collection.
 
Mr Perceptive said:
just downloaded Affinity Publisher - is that zine GAS??
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Definitely not if you want to do colour. You need your jpegs in CMYK and you need your output in CMYK, all the microsoft products including Publisher only output RGB which gives random colour results when printed. I know because I tried some Mixam samples from Publisher.

BTW, me too. Already shooting a "Covid" project with a zine in mind .... what have we done :facepalm:
 
sirch said:
Definitely not if you want to do colour. You need your jpegs in CMYK and you need your output in CMYK, all the microsoft products including Publisher only output RGB which gives random colour results when printed. I know because I tried some Mixam samples from Publisher.

BTW, me too. Already shooting a "Covid" project with a zine in mind .... what have we done :facepalm:
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So as someone who is also thinking of doing colour next time, what's the best approach?
 
@sirch must have used a well trained pigeon for my delivery as it has just arrived, especially as the bird was carrying a little extra weight.;)(y)

It's been great to see the different approaches and concepts through the collection. It's also been fun waiting for each one to arrive. :) I'll leave the reviews to others, apart from saying that I'll have to up my game if there's a second round!

I've not used Affinity to actually produce a zine yet, but once the basics are grasped it is better to use than Scribus and Open Office (neither of which have caused me any colour issues when outputting a PDF), and it can do much more.

Currently I'm whittling down 70 plus sheep show pictures to see what Mixam make of a 50-60 page perfect bound zine. Is it still a zine at that sort of page count?

Affinity certainly made it easy to add the outline and drop shadow to the title text.

lonks.jpg
 
Harlequin565 said:
So as someone who is also thinking of doing colour next time, what's the best approach?
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I applied the "close your eyes and hope for the best approach", however I also chose images which didn't rely too much on accurate colour reproduction.........cunning hey

Mixam do give a CMYK profile to convert to and that profile is in photoshop, however it isn't in affinity publisher. I've just done one this way and the colours were fine using another publisher CMYK profile
 
Ed Sutton said:
@sirch

Currently I'm whittling down 70 plus sheep show pictures to see what Mixam make of a 50-60 page perfect bound zine. Is it still a zine at that sort of page count?

Affinity certainly made it easy to add the outline and drop shadow to the title text.
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Mine was a 34 page+covers perfect bound and it's better than the stapled zines in my view. I used 170gsm weight paper and the heaviest they offered (350?) for the cover and it's a little slim but not too bad. 60 pages should be great
 
Harlequin565 said:
So as someone who is also thinking of doing colour next time, what's the best approach?
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Using Mixam it's worth getting a 'free' proof copy of a few pages. Also worthwhile doing to check how things appear as far as layout goes too, especially with perfect bound books which need text/images further from the gutter.
 
Ed Sutton said:
Using Mixam it's worth getting a 'free' proof copy of a few pages. Also worthwhile doing to check how things appear as far as layout goes too, especially with perfect bound books which need text/images further from the gutter.
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You do get a warning if you place text or images too close to the central spine (he says speaking from experience)

Can you get the free proof every time?
 
Harlequin565 said:
So as someone who is also thinking of doing colour next time, what's the best approach?
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The Tincan zine was in Scribus, the Fellside one was a third attempt in Affinity Publisher (after MS Publisher and Scribus). Scribus is OK but it's not too easy to correct mistakes or see what you are doing in terms of layers etc. whereas Affinity has a layers panel like PS so you can easily see what is going on. I also found Scribus doing wierd things to some images when imported (esp. CMKY TIFFS).

As I said none of the Microsoft products will output CMYK, they all convert to RGB even if you start with CMYK jpegs. I talked to Mixam about it and basically if you upload RGB their software automatically converts it to CMYK and the results are hit-and-miss. It's better to control that conversion yourself. So I used PS to set the CMYK colour space (Image -> Mode -> CMYK) and export as jpegs, then lay those out in Affinity.
 
Mr Perceptive said:
Yep, not sure I can wait that long before printing another zine though......
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My original thinking was that people would be away over the summer and that Sept/Oct would be a good time before the Christmas shenanigans but given the unusual circumstances this summer I'd be happy to do something sooner if people are interested
 
sirch said:
I got mine printed at Mixam.

Sounds like everyone enjoyed it, are we up for another round in September or October? I know I am
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definitely, might be a lot of indoor fotos though......

Also got my last 1+bonus today, have to say i'm intrigued by the tin can selfie idea, I did make a pinhole camera about 40 years ago but I've no idea how I did it o_O
 
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