"A humble life"

My latest zine project

If you have read the latest edition of the Darkroom Magazine which was published by

Marcel Borgstijn

this week, you might have gotten a first glimpse of the zine project I have been working on for the last couple of months. If you have not seen it yet, I highly recommend to check out the Magazine. It features 22 photographers (all here on Substack) and their work.

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My latest zine “a humble life”

While living in Chicago (from 2010 to 2012), I photographed many abandoned places in the Midwest and on the Great Plains. And even after moving back to Germany, I returned several times to travel and photograph these fascinating places. And up until today, the Great Plains still keep calling me, telling me I have unfinished business there.

But because of the pandemic and all, I have not managed to go back in recent years, but the desire to visit is still strong.

In the meantime, I have been picking out smaller projects from the lot of photographs I have made there over the years. The zine “a humble life” is my latest one.

It is about a person I have never met. He died long before I even set foot in his house so neatly tucked away in the rolling hills of the South Dakotan prairie.

I visited this house in 2016 for the first time. The front door stood open and was inviting me in. Unlike other abandoned houses, the place was still filled with lots of furniture, clothes and personal items. But it was clear that this house had not been lived-in for a very long time: the torn curtains, the ripped wallpaper and the thick layers of dust on everything didn’t leave any doubts.

I found a bottle of medicine with a name on it in the kitchen and was able to search for the name of the owner and find the person’s obituary online. That was the moment when I knew I wanted to tell the story of this person through my photographs.

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Creating this zine took me longer than I thought. Selecting the photographs, pairing and sequencing them was probably the most time-consuming, but also the most important step in making this zine. On top of that came: writing the text, creating the layout, choosing the right paper, making test prints and refining again and again.

Now, holding the final product in my hands I couldn’t be happier. I am very pleased with the way it turned out.

Here are a few pages from it:

If you are interested in a copy, you can order it here.

Your support is truly appreciated!

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That’s it from me today.

Thank you for being here and for reading this week’s newsletter. It means a lot to me!

X,

Susanne

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Any thoughts? I would love to hear from you. Please share them in the comments with me.

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