A Re-Collection of Birds
A few weeks ago, I introduced you to the American photographer Terri Weifenbach and her beautiful book “Des Oiseaux” (“On Birds”). After discovering it in 2022, I learned that the book is actually part of a whole series of photo books celebrating birds through the vision of different artists.
The last time I checked, there were fourteen books in this series, but it seems the publisher Atelier EXB keeps adding more editions to it. Besides the photo book of Terri Weifenbach the edition includes books by other well known photographers such as Graciela Iturbide, Michael Kenna, and Rinko Kawauchi.
Ever since I bought Terri Weifenbach’s photo book, I added two more of the series to my collection: Graciela Iturbide and Pentti Sammallathi. In my dreams, I own them all one day…
Anyway, looking at all these photographs reminded me of my own photographs of birds and the memories attached to them. And the further I jumped down that rabbit hole, the more photos and moments I remembered.
And eventually, the idea for a little project began to form in my head. If you have been reading my newsletter for a while, you probably already figured it out into what this project turned: A zine. Nothing fancy. Rather something personal, with short notes where the photo was taken or other snippets from my memory.
That is, when I remembered Wim Wenders wonderful book “Einmal - Bilder und ihre Geschichten” (“Once - Pictures and their stories”).
Wenders book is like a picture book with short stories. Through his photographs and his writing, the filmmaker and photographer revisits moments, places, and people he has met around the world. Sometimes big and important moments, other times just small snatches from the past. The stories are sometimes funny, other times nostalgic but always personal and in any case interesting to read. He starts every new story with “Einmal”, like fairy tales start with “Once upon a time”. I like that.
My version of the book is in German, but to give you an idea of the layout, here are a few pages from the book:
After rummaging, first my memory and then my hard drive for the photos I wanted to use, I printed them out (on my small portable printer) and laid them out before me on the table. As I said before, I didn't want it to be anything fancy. Rather something small and personal. I thought about a handmade book but instead went with a store-bought notebook with plain pages. I added the photos and my handwritten notes. And et voila my zine “A Re-Collection of Birds” was finished.
Because the photos in the zine are tiny and don’t show well in the video I added a few of the pages here:
I like to work on little projects like this for a few reasons:
Small projects are less intimidating than those big projects we sometimes keep pushing along
It is satisfying to create something with your hands (and not just designing it digitally) and to have the final product in form of a zine (and not only on your computer)
It can lead to ideas for future projects
It keeps the creative juices flowing because it really pushes your motivation
Working on small projects like this can teach you a lot about layout, sequencing and book design for future projects
It forces you to let go off your perfectionism
If you want to take a look at my other zine projects I have written about, you can see them all here.
That’s it from me today. As always, thank you for being here and for reading this week’s newsletter. It means a lot to me!
X,
Susanne
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What a wonderful project! Creating a zine can be a good reason to finally print all the beautiful photos you've taken but never printed
Not only Wim Wenders... Your zine "A Re-Collection of Birds" is unique Susanne.