Avid readers of this blog (are there any other kind?) will remember a post at the end of July about my walk up Croagh Patrick on Reek Sunday, the annual Catholic pilgrimage here in Ireland. It was an amazing experience, with 15,000 people walking up a mountain to celebrate mass. I tagged along and took a set of pictures that I finally got around to putting out as a zine.

This year, I’ve really enjoy putting zines and books together. While I didn’t manage 12 in 12 months as I’d threatened in January (in fairness, we did emigrate in April which scuppered quite a few plans), I did end up releasing four zines and produce a handmade special after discovering stab-binding. I’ve learned a lot about the process and how it adds to one’s photographic practice, and enjoyed the fact that creating zines (or even writing blog posts) can give a purpose to a trip out shooting.
As Graeme Sunbeam discussed on a recent episode of the Sunny 16 Podcast, it’s like learning to play guitar. If you stand a guitar in the corner of the room and pick it up every-so-often for a ‘noodle about’, you’ll make some initial progress, but soon plateau. If you were to join a group or have some performance to prepare for, it’ll give focus and a reason to improve. You need focus if you’re ever going to get better at something.

Another thing that’s been great to see through 2018 is how other people have taken their first steps into making their own zines. Many of the folks that were kind enough to buy those first couple of releases followed up with questions about how I put mine together and took me up on my challenge to them to produce something themselves.
Opening the box from the printers, full of your work in physical form is always very special; seeing that your work has encouraged someone else to do similar is almost as good!

Here’s a closer look at the Reek Sunday #photozine by #bw photographer @BarnabyNutt. We printed this in Colour on Natural Paper to help make the blacks in his #bwphotography a whole lot blacker! Thinking of printing your own #zines? Get an instant quote > https://t.co/gneJUjnPSN pic.twitter.com/y5sdsFjcLk

— Mixam Printing (@mixamprint) November 26, 2018

I hope to begin again in the New Year, and would really like to help others get their own work out to people in book form. If you’ve got a body of work that you think might make a zine or book but either can’t work out how, or want some help with editing, sequencing etc, get in touch and let’s collaborate. Even if you just want to chat through an idea, I’d be happy to help.

If you’d like a copy of Reek Sunday, click on the ‘shop’ link at the top of the page.

Finally, thanks to Mixam for featuring my stuff – I’ve used them for all four of my projects and have sent anyone that’s asked in their direction too.

Reek Sunday is the fourth #photozine project of 2018 by #bw photographer @BarnabyNutt and follows the annual Catholic pilgrimage up Croagh Patrick, Ireland’s holy mountain. Square 210mm, perfect bound and printed by Mixam on 160gsm natural paper with a 350gsm silk cover. pic.twitter.com/FmjkgtZJgb

— Mixam Printing (@mixamprint) November 15, 2018

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