Lewis Bush: Photobooks workshop August 2020

You can make a book well, cheaply, or quickly, but you can never do all three. Tom Mrazuauskas/Brave Books

I had heard great things about Lewis’ workshops and while I had no particular outcome in mind my ever present interest in artists books and the summer break made this a great time to give one a go. I’m really glad I did as they have now been suspended while Lewis starts his PhD. Delivered online there were four sessions over four days with some practical activity in between. The course had a clear framework and is one that seems to me is transferable to other aspects of my making:

Defining project aims
Developing project concepts
Researching inspiration
Experimentation and drafting
Testing and reworking

Breaking down the project aims of a photobook was particularly helpful:

Clarity of aims and intentions
Think about writing your own brief
Consider ‘what, who, when, where, how, why’
- What is its scope? Think about scale, is it a zine or a coffee table book?
- Who is the intended audience? Be specific
- How is it going to be funded and produced?
- When does it need to be ready?
- Where will it be seen and bought?
- Why are you making it (what do you want from it)?

I found the notion of writing your own brief interesting, and realise it is probably something I do subliminally but that it might be useful to be more overt about it. The workshop has generated a lot of ideas for me and I am looking to explore the zine format more, not least because it is a great way to test ideas. I made a very quick example during the course based on my computer generated woods and want to pursue it further to include text exploring computing and imagination.