Why a Zine?
My last post was about the next zine, but wanted to jump into some more details on this, a bit of WHY? And where it all began. Let's start at the beginning, with Let's Create, my annual Facebook group competition (kind of). I'd wanted a way to bring people together and create a book or zine, and this was the Eden of my thinking about making a zine myself. Sadly, due to the unresponsive nature of Facebook and a lack of people getting involved, I knew I had to switch direction and use my time more wisely. Don't get me wrong, I worked hard to bring that Facebook group together, and for a couple of years it did well, but engagement stalled and Facebook never really gave us the tools to build a proper community. I wanted so much more. For many years I had wanted to make a real publication.
As far back as 1995, when I was at college, I made VIBE magazine. It was part of my Foundation and A Levels, and it laid part of the groundwork for everything I've done since. Back then I was using QuarkXPress, oh, how times have changed. But my thirst for creating a zine never faded, even as the tools, the technology, and I myself moved on.
The photograph below is of the first Let's Create zines I made, back in 2020/2021. I was so proud of these, reading all the names inside, seeing the wonderful photography that people produced, was incredible. They're no longer available, and now they're a fond memory sitting on my shelf, a little piece of history I get to keep.
That's it. That's the whole point: to have something you can pick up off a shelf, no screen time involved, and step back in time to a moment. To read about those times and see creativity in print, rather than scroll past it and forget it existed.
So what's the point of this post in Field Notes today? Some of you may have heard that I'm going to reset Vol 1 and Vol 2 of the CREATE zine into a square format, so that my latest zine, Wider Landscapes, fits together with them, all of them in the same square format, sitting together as one collection. Wider Landscapes is almost complete and ready to be loaded onto my website, but bear with me: I want the whole collection to match and work together, ready for Vol 4, the last of the CREATE series.
BUT! Not the last of the publication.
I'm setting myself up for a quarterly project to build the CREATE zine into a wider publication, one that features other photographers and stories from the podcast, YouTube, and many other avenues within our photography community. Featured guests, news stories, and much, much more, he says! This could well be a project too far, but it's worth having a go, isn't it? It's something I've wanted to do for a very long time. Ideally I want it to exist in both print and digital form, but all of that is still up in the air.
It would be great to get some support for this, brands and advertising, but adverts chosen because they're relevant and useful to the photography community, rather than just the latest and greatest camera. The only way this will be successful is with the support of subscribers and brands alike.
Full circle, really. Going on a journey from my days at college and university, through Let's Create, to now the CREATE zine. So, what are your thoughts? "Oh, another publication!" "Oh, exciting, can't wait to see it and order it!" "Mali, just keep doing your own photography and stories?" Anyway... before I get too carried away, let's get back to Vol 3, CREATE - Wider Landscapes, a working title.
So, here are a few images below from the new zine, soon to be available.
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