Behind the Photos of my New Zine

First of all I just wanted to say a big thank you to everyone who has already bought my new photo zine on Magcoud! The response blew me away. I think part of the reason that it took me so long to finally release it was because I was so afraid that no one would want to see it. So thank you again. Your support means the world to me.

Riding in Cars with Film

This is the third installment from my series, Riding in Cars with Film. The first two zines got really nice feedback, and has really helped me keep this site and my YouTube channel going in terms of expenses. Thank you to everyone who has bought those over the years. When I first started this series, it was meant to do just that, raise a little bit of money to keep this site going. However, it has evolved into so much more.

I started taking photos from the passenger seat back in 2019 when I first started getting back into photography again, and at the time I was so sick that I couldn’t walk without help and was mostly in a wheelchair. (Read about that here.) Taking photos from the car window was my solution to not being able to go for photo walks. From there it evolved into a really helpful way to cope and distract myself when going to doctors appointments, which gives me a lot of anxiety.

Then came the pandemic. For this period of time we were all confined to our homes and cars. The series just continued to transform into whatever my life needed it to be in that moment. From 2020 to 2023, my little corner of the world was changing dramatically, and left me with a lot of different feelings. In that time I became a mother and my perspective on a lot of things has changed. Things that weren’t necessarily important to me before became front of mind, and by the end of 2023 my ability to take photos from the car slowly came to a halt. This season of my life feels like a transition period. Something I am still trying to adjust to, but I never plan on stopping creating and taking photos.

Behind the Photos

This zine was shot with all black and white film, and I will be coming out with even more photos in the color edition in the near future. They cover the years 2020 through 2023, and I am so proud of this one. I put a lot of time and care into this volume, and I hope it shows.

I have sequenced the photos to tell a story and to communicate the change in the world around me. The book starts with a photo I took of a jeep with a Grateful Dead style bumper sticker that read “Make America Grateful Again.” While I don’t really like to be political on here, it was unavoidable in this project as today’s politics have become front and center for so many people.

It is almost impossible to avoid peoples political views around town. From Trump flags in windows, bumper stickers on cars, pro Biden signs, and even anti-abortion billboards, many opinions are made known. It is in and of itself a political statement for our freedom of speech in this country. Through it all, I tried to shoot without judgement and just document everything I saw.

As you go on through the zine, you’ll see several gas stations which is deliberate. In the beginning the price of gas is $2.18. Then towards the end you’ll see the price rise to $4.09. Everything in between shows the effects of this on my neighbors. People riding bikes instead of driving their cars. A mother and her young son walking in the Florida heat to the grocery store. You see a guy working on his own car, in contrast to a closed mechanics garage and a junkyard full of cars.

Through it all I wanted to take you on a drive through my town, which could read as anywhere USA basically, and show the reader many things that have penetrated the average persons everyday life. Over the railroads, past the empty marshes on the highway, past the factories and into the suburban neighborhoods all seen through my eyes and my window.

Final thoughts

What started out as a means of coping, has evolved into so much more. It has changed my way of seeing. I’ve had a long and arduous love-hate relationship with the town where I’ve lived for 35 years. Once I started taking photos for this series, the act of seeing this place over and over from every direction, has given me the ability to see it in a different way. The photos in this zine tell a piece of what has become a much larger project that I have been working on for a few years now.

On top of all of that, it has been really fun to see how much my style and skill set has improved since I created the first zine. I hope you all can see it too. I hope you enjoy the book if you pick it up, and I hope you’ll let me know. Having your support through these years has meant the world to me, and this little project has been my thank you for giving me the space to share, and grow without judgement.

As always, make sure you stay motivated, and keep shooting.

Buy my new zine:

Read more about this series here

Click here to watch my YouTube video about my new zine