I wasn’t sure what a zine was before signing up for another Santa Fe Workshop online photography program, although I probably should have. I’ve been putting together photo books following travel for years, and a zine is a small, soft cover magazine, shorter and much less expensive to do than a book. After the first class, I thought it would be a cinch to produce a zine. Not so fast. While one can include anything in it that contributes to the point of the project, one does need a point to begin with. I’d only done the “here I am in front of whatever” kind of travel diary book before; now I needed a subject, and photos that fit the focus. Hmmm.
I had no intention of creating anything for sale, so it seemed to me a “travel summary” zine would work. After sorting through hundreds of photos and quotes collected over time, I settled on stones as my focus, with help from William Shakespeare who mentioned “…sermons in stones…” in As You Like It. Stones show up in all kinds of human creations (the Great Wall of China, Machu Picchu in Peru) and in God created settings too (like the Alps and Rocky Mountains). I thought I ought to be able to find some coherence in there somewhere.
The most interesting and difficult exercise for me in putting the zine together was sequencing. How do the photos fit together (color, shape, pattern, purpose?) Did I need to explain pairings or flow of pictures? Was moving from page to page confusing? Should the photos be large or small, stand alone or grouped? Did I want text? Did the text augment the story, or distract from the photos? Yikes.
I finished the project following a zillion revisions, and I’ll probably never do it again. However, I really liked the exercise of pairing photos, looking for commonalities in far flung expressions of stone. It was another eye opener, which is why one takes classes like these I think. Here are a few of my pairing choices, each from a different country (identified when hovering the cursor over a photo.)
My Time Too 
WOW, nice Zine!! Pairing the similarities looks to be a difficult challenge, but one well executed!
Glorious images. You have a great eye!
You and Mary are my biggest cheerleaders, thank you!
I love those kind of assignments—where it takes a week just to tease out what is expected. I can fully understand why you enjoyed it!
So nice to hear from you Susan, and hope you are staying well and not doing toooooo crazy much stuff (although if you didn’t, you wouldn’t be you…). Thanks for staying in touch!
Stunning! You are so creative and have such an amazing eye!
Wow! Gorgeous and love the side by side similarities, yet differences. I continue to be in awe of your talents!!!