What is Photography Zine?

[Ko.Fe.]

Lately I'm seeing this Z-word. Another forum just have thread named "where to buy Zines in NY?" 😱

I just googled "photography zines", it brings something unclear to me. Some trendy talks at Vice and some Google searched images. But nothing from Wikipedia, yet 🙂

Could someone help me with this? What is the "photography zine"?

I have strange feeling it is something I'm currently working on as hand made, hand stitched photo album (is it called albumen now 😕) which I would like to send as respond to private request to see my Moscow 2016 pictures on prints.

"I just send you my zine" it would be cool to write instead of just "I made the old fashion photo album for you with my pictures". Less grammar to deal with as well. 😀

 

[35photo]

Yep, a handmade, self published set of photographs printed be it with inkjet, xerox, etc..

 

[Ko.Fe.]

Thank you, Marko!

So, if I will glue on my darkroom prints and stitch pages with same yarn I'm using to hold our backyard cucumbers, it is not the zine? Because it is glued on image on page, not the page printed with the image?

 

[shootar401]

I think it's short for "magazine" I remember hearing it a number of years ago used by liberal hipsters in the context of an online magazine; "Come check out my zine at www....."

 

[Ko.Fe.]

Yes, thank you! I googled just "zine" and liberal hipsters a.k.a. AGO came at one of the first search returns. Entertaining!: http://artmatters.ca/wp/2008/08/what-is-a-zine/

So, it looks like I'm not zine person, but conservative with analog prints mounted on album pages. 🙂

 

[35photo]

Thank you, Marko!

So, if I will glue on my darkroom prints and stitch pages with same yarn I'm using to hold our backyard cucumbers, it is not the zine? Because it is glued on image on page, not the page printed with the image?

Sure! You can call that a zine as well I suppose...

 

[Ko.Fe.]

Sure! You can call that a zine as well I suppose...

But it needs to be sub-named if I dare to. Analogue Zine, maybe? Meh, it is not fancy enough. :bang:

 

[tunalegs]

The wonders of google found me this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zine

 

[35photo]

But it needs to be sub-named if I dare to. Analogue Zine, maybe? Meh, it is not fancy enough. :bang:

Nah, it will be more unique therefore you could charge more for it🙂

 

[Chubberino]

Old people are cool

 

[NickTrop]

In the pre-internet era, a "zine" was a narrow cast, tiny circulation homemade magaZINE that would be sold on magazine racks in larger, 'hipper" bookstores. So -- say I liked Japanese science fiction films from the 60's (Kaiju flicks). I might make or buy a quarterly "zine" with self-authored articles about the topic and run it off on a copier, staple it, and work a deal with a book store to include it with other "zines" in their "zine" section.

You don't hear of "zines" these days because ummm -- "internet". Zines were a late-80's, early 90's thing iirc.

 

[35photo]

In the pre-internet era, a "zine" was a narrow cast, tiny circulation homemade magaZINE that would be sold on magazine racks in larger, 'hipper" bookstores. So -- say I liked Japanese science fiction films from the 60's (Kaiju flicks). I might make or buy a quarterly "zine" with self-authored articles about the topic and run it off on a copier, staple it, and work a deal with a book store to include it with other "zines" in their "zine" section.

You don't hear of "zines" these days because ummm -- "internet". Zines were a late-80's, early 90's thing iirc.

Indeed, that zine concept is an old one.... Bands also used make fan zines to promote themselves to fans...

 

[jsrockit]

Zines are certainly still alive today. They are DIY publishing.

 

[Ko.Fe.]

Thanks for educating me! So, back in USSR it was Samizdat. Self publishing, but not all of it was for profit. More like underground. And facing jail time...
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samizdat

 

[maigo]

Zines are the computer shareware of printed media.
From another era yet still produced by radical (analog) peoples.
Like film photography.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[jsrockit]

Interesting. Yeah, similar ... in the US it could be political, but mostly it was underground art / writing / poetry / music related... well, that I saw anyway. Perhaps I wasn't in the right circles to see the overtly political stuff. I guess the political climate would have differed though.

 

[RichC]

It's worth mentioning that along with the rise of the artist photobook has come the rebirth of the photography zine. Photography zines are now more popular and numerous than they have ever been.

Rather than following the home-made DIY ethos of their forerunners, the '70s–'90s music zines (created largely by fans) with their lo-fi appearance, today's photo zine is often a much more polished affair - partly because of technology (i.e. computers and cheap laser printing), partly because of the visual sensibility of the authors (photographers!).

Why a photography zine? First, they're a cheap and easy way to get your work into print and circulated - whether self-published or commercial (e.g. IDEA Books is a small London-based publisher known for its photo zines, some catching the imagination and making a big splash: Gosha Rubchinskiy's "Crimea Kids" 300-print-run zine sold out in just 3 days, http://www.anothermag.com/art-photography/3863/exclusive-gosha-rubchinskiys-crimea-kids).

Secondly, the photographer can be more experimental and controversial than is the case with a photo book (its high cost in money and time leading to constraints and being risk averse - assuming you can afford to or convince someone to publish it in the first place). Zines can challenge you with how they're made and their content, or both. For example, "Tiergarten, Landscape of Transgression" explores landscape and sexuality by looking at Berlin's famous park (used for gay cruising since the Nazi era) - one of several zines by photographer Marc Vallee on topics out of public view, mostly on youth culture (see "The British Journal of Photography": http://www.bjp-online.com/2015/08/tiergarten-zine-marc-vallee/).

 

[taylan]

As a member of a photographic zine, I would like to write something about it. At least I want to write what I feel about producing a zine. First of all I should mention how we started to produce it and why we needed such a media. We are five people in the group and we know each other for a long time. Actually, four of us are RFF members as well. In addition, analog photography has a special place on our life. We are always producing and we needed a medium to share our experiences. So, talking about mediums and alternative production methods; we decided to publish a zine. We try to establish the zine on collaboration. In that manner, we are choosing a theme for every issue and try to publish zine twice in a year. We have published three issues so far and planning to publish fourth one at autumn. As I said it is a collaborative zine and we try to deal every detail by ourselves. We are taking photographs, selecting and sequencing them dealing with print house, posting and delivering etc together. Furthermore, we are amateurs photographers and amateur means one pays for her/his hobbies. So we decided to pay money for production instead of consumption. Thus, it is a free distributed zine.
After this short summary about zine, let me start to write what I feel about zine. First of all it is great 🙂. I am so happy be a part of such a collaborative group. I believe that we can not achieve our problems alone. So being with a group, sharing ideas, producing together feels me stronger against to this world. In addition, zine is forcing my imagination and creativity. I have always ideas, photographs, images on my mind for zine. And lastly we are getting so positive feedbacks and lovely touches that feels me emotionally stronger. In short, zine is helping me to breath in this unbearable world.

BTW I forgot to say the name of the zine. It is "Gözaltı" which has several meanings being under surveillance or scrutiny, under eye in Turkish and our website is http://www.gozaltifanzin.com/ You can find our social media accounts at our webpage but I can say that we are not good online mediums 🙂

 

[Talus]

Pretty much what was already said with the addition that zines seemed to have started as a result of the 80s punk rock era. Back then, people created small xeroxed pamphlets to advertise bands, live shows and concert dates, etc and also do a bit of good old anti-government writing. My older sister used to collect them back then at punk shows. Given the ease of making them, it allowed people to self publish and say whatever they wanted without any censorship.

Today, zines have taken on a completely new evolution. Some are hand made and stapled xerox pages and some are press printed mini books.

I sometimes go onto eBay and type in "photography zine" and also "zine" just to see what's out there and what people are creating.

 

[rbiemer]

Zines absolutely started before Punk, fyi. The first one I recall seeing was made with a typewriter and a mimeograph...
I graduated highschool in 1978 and we had made 4 or 5 twice yearly issues of one for my hometown/local band scene--with a bit of lamenting all those rock star sellouts (I cringe a bit at the glorious hubris of my youth! 🙂 )

Rob