Nine months since my last post. Nine months of mostly quarantine. I try to walk every day; at least a mile, sometimes three. Occasionally, during nice weather, I meet someone outside and sit and talk, masked. Once or twice a week I meet with Robin and Steve who are both working from home and even more careful. Otherwise everything by Zoom. I am high risk and It’s a terrible way to die. I haven’t felt like writing, but I have been making books. In fact, I have completed #97. No, I won’t show all of them in this post.

I’ve had two sources of inspiration: my book-making group that met monthly to teach and experiment with new structures and techniques and which I will discuss in another post; and a package of 4 x 6 inch glossy photo paper; a total departure from anything I did in the past. Back when I was a “real” photographer I would never print on glossy paper, never printed anything that small; never printed such an odd assortment of photos. As an iPhone photographer I seldom take a single photo I consider “really good.” But often I can put together a group and make a book. But how to make a book from 4 x 6 paper that you can’t even fold. It cracks.

Looking through my photos I realized I had taken many photos of works of art where I am reflected in the work. I printed out the photos, made an accordion structure where the photos pop up, and glued them in. I don’t know if I’ve ever written this before, but I will make every mistake it’s possible to make. This book exemplifies it. I plan to remake it, printing directly on the paper I use for the structure so I don’t have to glue. Happily I don’t have much of the glossy paper left. So here is the book:

To begin with the cover is too wide. It’s the same size as each sheet, but the sheets are folded. The book is approximately 9 x 9 inches to allow positioning the six inch side as vertical or horizontal. The cover should have been 7 inches wide. By the way, the reflective material I used for the cover was from a blanket Robin got at a race. Then I positioned the photos on the wrong side of the paper. To compensate for the blank right hand page I added image transfers. Some are OK. Many are not. I will do it again; I have plenty of blanket material left and I hope I won’t find more mistakes to make.