I started to compose my photo zine in 2016 when I discovered, in fact, A5 zine is a good format to deliver photographs with stories. I bet I can call myself a zinester.
A photobook can be very huge if you are the collector of Photobook you will be familiarized with some great photobook publisher such as Steidl, Thames and Hudson, MACK etc. And photobook can be tiny, sometimes is even smaller than A5 size, you usually find small photobook from Asian publisher, for example, Daido Moriyama “Shinjuku Plus". A large photobook is elegant, serious; where small photobook is intimacy. Both of them are great in their own sense.
In fact for a zine, it can be a various size too, but here I wanted to focus on A5 sized portrait format zine. Compare the A5 zine format to the large and small photobook, it seems zine can be closer to the small photobook. However, it has some significant differences between them. In order to save cost for producing a small photobook in Asia, publisher commonly chooses the perfect bind to the project. It is the most common bookbinding method to produce over a 200 pages book. However, when it comes to photobook, it lies a problem where if you arrange a landscape format images into a spread of portrait format book, the photograph will be clipped in the middle. Well, it is still fine as it produces a unique way of seeing the photographs over the spread. But, due to the perfect bind, the photograph in the middle of the spreads will be eaten, sometimes it may cause the undesired experience to the reader. Seriously, somehow it is unbearable to me.
A5 sized zine format resolved this problem, it uses straddle stitch bookbinding method, every pages it opens up completely, even you put the photographs over the spread, it lies perfectly. The professional publisher, however, could produce photobook that lay flat, by using OTA binding, but it is expensive. This is the main reason that I choose photo zine instead of the small photobook, I wanted it to lay flat but I can't afford OTA binding. The only drawback of straddle stitch is you can only bind a limited page, else it will be too ugly to present your work. To have more pages to cover your story? Makes them into a few copies.
Anders Peterson 's City Diaries published by Steidl gives us a very good example of using straddle stitch.
So, I wanted to produce a quality zine. To me, a zine can deliver more than a content, It delivers the sentiment. The design, the arrangement of the photographs, the typography, and also the choice of paper, the printing and binding style, they all counted. They are all you got, to express whatever you wanted to express on the folds of papers. I always have a lot of ideas, regarding the photo zine design, some works some don't. I used to just think about it for quite sometimes before I started to realize it on a dummy. The concept of making my third zine "
Sawasdee Zine" was started before I published my second zine "
Day by day, Night by night" I did make a dummy of the early design of "Sawasdee" zine, but It failed. Somehow the "Day by day, Night by night" works, therefore it has been published first. However, Sawasdee zine design was revisited, after a year later.
Paper selection is important, they are the skin and fresh of my zine. I seriously wanted them to be sensible, when you hold my zine, you will feel it, as my choice of paper is great. I am lucky because I found my best paper combination for cover and inner that suit my project from the beginning. Since my first zine "
Home Town", I started to use them. A couple of my friends told me the same, they do love the touch, this gives me a lot of confidence. Yes, I have picked the right combination after all.
Printer. To find a suitable print shop that produces the right print for my zine is challenging. To print it right is not easy. The print shop might able to produce a decent color digital print doesn't mean they can produce a suitable black and white print. When I show them what I want, they told me "That is offset printing." That was when I begin to learn about the offset printing was not what I can afford. But again, thank God I finally got the right print for "
Sawasdee Zine". I was so delighted when received the zines from the print shop.
Marketing, perhaps I am bad at it, the biggest challenge for me. I envy those who have the ability to sell anything to anyone, I bet I am not a good salesman, but I am learning. I am a zinester, all my zines are my babies. I don't want to sell them like vegetables, I wish the collectors who get my zine are delighted. My goal is to produce a reasonable quality zine with reasonable price. But I wish my zine's value can be raised from time to time. A romantic example to me, If Robert Frank ever published a limited copy of photo zine himself on the early days and I do own a copy of it, and this piece of zine could probably more valuable than his famous photobook "The Americans".
I am thankful to God, I get to know many new friends, who love photobooks, photo zines like me. With Eden Lai, Fábio Miguel Roque and Peter Oey, we collaborate to produce an epic zine called "
Orient & Occident", besides gaining experience working together, we do enjoy along the process. I am honored, that Fábio Miguel Roque trusted me to design a zine for him, it called "
Another love story", I love the outcome of that zine, it is amazing! I hope he likes it too. I design "
Ego x Street" zine for Jay Tang and "
ZERO" photobook for Kuan-Hsien Lin that published recently.
And very recently, I get to know about
inSomnia Photography, and Nathanaël Coetzée. He and his friends have started the inSomnia Photography Magazine, to promote the body of works of the various artist over the world. They started them online, published on
ISSUU, but people started to ask for a real print! Wonderful isn't it? By noticing them, I feel I have found the new comrades, that shares the same sentiments and love towards the photography in print. I really look forward to collaborating with inSomnia group, and I wish them all the best!
There are more challenges and room of improvement ahead of me that I can't list now. But finally, I would like to thank all of you who had helped me in the past, who support me by purchasing my zines, who gives me guidance, tolerate my stupidity and laziness. For sure I wish to continue getting support from you all in the future, I will do my best, to produce delighting zines, because I am a zinester.
Peace.
為了要參觀攝影集比賽展覽而去了新加坡，但卻沒看見一本真正覺得能夠捉住我的。或許是門檻太高，我根本走不進去。可能幾年前的我，會刻意硬著頭皮，去咀嚼去消化，想從中得到些什麼養份。但我發現到頭來，換來的會是暈眩，然後就像洋蔥剝皮，當你把皮剝完後，就是個空。我走了一輪，每本都翻了一下，就放棄了。
很明顯，我活在自己的世界裡。有人說，「你的照片都沒顏色。」我說有，怎麼沒顏色了？「你的照片只有黑白。」那至少你看見了兩種顏色，但其實還有很多階層的灰色。在這個世界裡，我找到了讓我有安全感的手把，依賴這個手把，我可以自己走自己想走的路。最後我還是補充了一句，「其實黑白攝影是其中一種攝影詮釋。」老實說，說了等於沒說，只不過希望問的人可以放過我。或許黑白攝影門檻太高吧，根本進不去，這樣去理解可以嗎？
因為機緣巧合，在新加坡看了荒木經惟的攝影展，我不確定他老人家有沒有親自過來策展，我揣摩是沒有，因為他老人家很老了，展覽也不大。但展出的照片是他的妻子楊子生前與死後的一些生活片段。還有一些他的小作品，以上照片就是他為一些年輕女生拍的肖像。她讓女生隨意穿著，自己擺出自己喜歡的姿態，然後把她們自然的拍下來。
新加坡有個房間堆滿了攝影集，房間不大，只有一張沙發，左右兩排書架，堆滿的都是攝影集。請注意我有「堆」這個字，因為它欠缺了「排」的感覺。它被稱之為攝影集圖書館，但它給我的感覺是攝影集儲藏室。距離我上一次來，哪裡的書有了很大的變動，增加了很多日本跟台灣的攝影集。尤其是森山大道的攝影集，很多。我拿出一本，很快翻了一下，又去拿出另一本，然後就這樣繼續幾次，心理告訴自己別再拿森山大道的了，看其他的吧。老實說，根本就看不了幾本，然後就頭昏腦脹了。太貪心，想盡快多看幾本，但其實反而對翻過的書沒留下一丁點印象。我突然想起馬雲說的一句話「錢太多，反而是一件壞事。」錢太多，就會有太多錢的責任，是沒錢的人無法理解的壓力。當下的我，壓力很大，有種被擊垮了的感覺。但如果我住新加坡的話，每個禮拜應該會去一次吧。
你相信嗎？照片看得太多，會嘔。一直再翻，到頭來幾乎都忘了自己曾看過什麼。在這個人人都拍照的年代，我們還需要思考攝影是什麼嗎？
好多好事都發生在八月，走出苦難的七月，八月宛如雨過天晴，柳暗花明。在吉中藝術教育嘉年華給的講座還算成功，感謝在地朋友的支持與捧場，書賣得很不錯。我也趕上八月把本來的WOB網站翻新，今天的
七月了，時間過得很快。身體還是怪怪的，雖然手指頭已經不痛了，但手掌卻開始脫一層薄皮。每個晚上總是覺得身體很熱，有時候會覺得很累。都已經一個月了，為何自己好像沒有完全康復呢？
與同事在週末的時候出去走走，相機有帶在身邊，不過照片拍得特別少。雖然如此，也還不至於沒有拍到自己滿意的照片，旅程也特別開心。突然想起八年前自己的一個心態，有種信念覺得自己會越來越好，不用去煩惱未來會變成怎樣，只要繼續去做自己所能做，跟該做的事就對了。放下了對未來的恐懼後，自己就會變得自由，也會變得自信，接著對什麼事都無所懼怕，並且就會得到勇往直前的能量了。突然想起自己有時候還是會害怕，沒有自己想像的那麼勇敢。不過因為這個樂觀的心態卻幫助了我很多，至少我現在可以印證，我8年走來，現在絕對是比起八年前的自己好多了。重點是「一定要相信自己」，相信自己可以走過去，因為擔心沒用，問題需要的不是擔心而是解決，與其把時間浪費在擔心，不如想辦法解決更好，然後繼續走下去，讓時間來告訴你一切。
我最近發現，我已經把相機的事放下了。我已經不再研究與跟進相機技術性的東西了，我現在只靠慣性在拍照，就像呼吸一樣，聽起來很炫，很浪漫吧！有一天，我出席某家相機公司舉辦的相機試拍會，我竟然在技術講師介紹新相機的當下睡著了。當時人很多，要借相機試拍要排隊，我實在提不起勁地提前離開了。雖然如此，我對於買新相機還是有慾望的，但我對於相機的要求變得不一樣了。我希望找個可以跟我合得來的相機，就算是有瑕疵也沒關係，沒什麼是完美的，喜歡就好，挺存粹挺單純的。
我最近積極學習設計，為了可以把小誌設計得更好而努力。我終於買到了王志弘《 Design by Wangzhihong.com 》，這本書非常厚大，而且非常貴。重點是當我發現這本書的存在時，其實很多地方已經賣完了，包括誠品、博客來、城邦網站等，但我竟然在馬來西亞的紀伊國屋書店的架上看到一本！我相信冥冥中自有安排。我的說法是，是書找到我，而不是我找到書。我用了整個星期日，從早到晚，把書翻完。我驚覺，我買的大部分台灣書，都是他設計的。有一些書，一看封面就可以猜到是他的設計，但有些是翻了這本書後，才後知後覺的。
眼前有很多分岔路，站在那裡，或許不知該走哪一條。
但最終還是要選擇一條。
一定要相信自己選的是對的，然後繼續走下去。
或許那可能是錯的，但那又能怎樣？
錯了就承擔，補救，悔改，然後再繼續走下去。
人生就是這樣。
二零一八年的六月，我不知時間去了哪裡。現在已經七月了，生了一場病到現在都還沒完全痊癒。我依然恍惚。
六月，我到底幹了些什麼？有些已經決定的事，生了一場病後，突然反省起來，我的決定對嗎？
最近每晚都沒法睡得著，思緒好亂，身體好累，十只手指頭直到現在還很痛。
這場仗不知何時才結束，我的敵人就是我自己，我的懦弱。我可以屈服嗎？輸了又怎樣？
我突然覺得自己被遺忘在孤島，幹嘛會這樣？對於朋友的調侃，已經開始麻木，也沒心情回槍了，怎麼辦？
我到底怎麼了，我現在真的無法拿捏。
回頭翻翻照片，原來六月初還有出去拍照，僅存的16張。還好，原來我依然拍照。