∴Serial Music Update #1∴

Outlining goals for my year-long photo project

A few posts ago I told you about the project I’m working on called Serial Music. Over the course of 2024 I’ll be putting together 12 photo zines featuring pairs of images made here in Korea, and I’ll release one zine a month from the start of 2025.

So far I’ve made 216 image pairs (so 432 images) and my goal is to reach 275 pairs by the end of the month. I have a rough idea that each zine will be 40 or so pages long, which means I’ll need around 20 pairs per zine, or maybe just a little less. That puts the total I’ll need at 240ish pairs (480ish images) for the whole project. I’m aiming to make 500 pairs by mid-year though (ha), then boil them down until I’m left with the ones I really think work.

I’m also considering writing a story in 12 chapters (!) and including one chapter per zine. I haven’t done this kind of writing in over a decade, so let’s diplomatically say I’m curious as to whether I can pull it off. The chapters would be short, like an A5 page or two. I’ve given myself until the end of this month to plan an arc for that. I’m going to say way up front here, if I don’t like how the story turns out, I’m nixing it. I have an admittedly odd idea in mind though, one that I’m keen at least to try.

I’ll write more about my pairing process and the imagery in later newsletters, but I noticed something this week that I’d like to share.

Here it is:

The pairs I like the most share some kind of element, but the element is either transformed in the second image, or it gestures to another element within that image or the first image.

Here’s what I mean:

And by that I mean this:

If your eyes are my eyes, the looking goes something like this:

• Starting at the leaf (the brightest and most clearly defined thing) I notice a similar verticality in the two images (the straight line down the middle).

• My eye goes to the bent nail (this is really best seen on a desktop), which shares a relationship with the leaf. There’s a physical relationship (shape), and a symbolic one (deviation from original form).

• I then see the wooden pillar being eaten away, and that sends me back to the edge of the leaf, which I now see is also brown and dying. That’s when I notice the leaf’s being held up by just a single thread of web.

• That could send you back to the pillar (because of the similar verticality again), or the space above the house (because of the shared position in the frame).

• That tree up top in the background makes me think about the pillar below it, that in essence it’s the same thing, and also the tree in the background behind the leaf, which is disappearing out of focus in a way that relates to the pillar’s thin shadow on the wall.

These optical trails will be tread differently by different people. But the point I’m trying to make is that one image points to the other, and that one points back at something similar but changed, and so on and on.

That’s where I’m at with Serial Music. I’m always self-conscious writing about what I’m going to do, but I’m offering a free window seat to anyone who’s interested in making things with their photos. We can learn how and do it together. Or you can watch me crash and burn. Either way, what’s there (for you) to lose?

Pairs on the table and plans on the wall

*Oh, another update. I’ve been filming this week for my video How to Make a Photo Zine (when you don’t know anything). I’ve got a bit more to shoot and I’m in the early part of editing, but when that’s ready you can see it here. It’s about how I made Dirty Work.

If you’ve ever made a zine or book, please let me know where I can check it out!

Cheers,

Chris.