Dear Friends,
Hello again from cold, snowy Minnesota where the current temperature is 2°F/-17 °C. It has been so long since I last wrote to you. I am sorry that I have been so quiet lately — both on Substack and on Instagram. I really needed time away from “producing content” for the internet and social media.
Thankfully, the last few months have been really positive. My family and I are doing well. My work has been a reasonable version of busy and I am feeling more connected to the work than I have in a long time. To combat stress, I have been focusing my attention on enjoying and living in the present day. This change in mindset has been really helpful and uplifting. Since October, I have been eating a pescatarian diet and really enjoying it. My Christmas list even includes a few pescatarian cookbooks to expand my meal choices in 2023. The musical soundtrack of my days has changed too. I have been listening to a lot of violin instrumental music - both classical as well as covers of contemporary music. I am enjoying the music of Damian Escobar, Josh Vietti, Ezinma, and Black Violin.
As for my creative pursuits, I have put my harsh light and shadow photography up on the shelf for now. I am exploring the introduction of inclement weather, atmosphere, artificial light, and motion into my scenes. I am enjoying the way that these elements in a photograph make me stop and explore the frame from corner to corner. Here, I am sharing 3 photographs I made this week. I added an oil paint filter to the images in Photoshop for some extra texture.
Since publishing the last issue of this newsletter, I have been working on a big photography project. When I started the year, I committed to making a book of my photographs from 2022. Throughout November, I tried to do just that — unsuccessfully. I compiled about 150 photographs taken over the previous 10+ months into a single folder in Lightroom. I uploaded them into BookWright, the book making software for Blurb, and began trying to sequence them. I was left underwhelmed and confused. The photos as a group didn’t say anything. They were random. The pairings felt forced. The subject matter was all over the place — from still life fruit in my kitchen to silhouette street photography to intentional camera movement scenes at the lake.
After a helpful video call with Tim Krupar on December 1st, I re-negotiated my commitment to myself and instead focused on making a book of photographs with more of a cohesive theme. The photographs would come from the 2022 folder as well as photographs from my archive since 2016. Over the next week, I meandered through a variety of themes as hidden, overlooked, and sometimes forgotten photographs emerged from my archive. It was fun and exhilarating - a virtual walk down memory lane.
This week, I uploaded a new collection of around 100 photographs to BookWright and got to work sequencing them. This time, the pairings called for each other. Color tied one spread to the next. I even found some time to go out at night or before sunrise to make some photographs specifically for the book. I think the project came together pretty well.
After getting some great advice from Hugh Rawson and Tim Hurley last Sunday during our weekly Stolen Echoes call, I embraced the idea that the book did not have to finished in order to be printed — a scrapbook of sorts to iterate on. My perfectionism often gets the best of me in these situations. I want it to be perfect and complete before printing. Tim, Hugh, and Tim all persuaded me to push through that resistance and get it printed. I am so glad I took their advice.
And so, yesterday around noon, I uploaded the book design to Blurb for printing. The book is called Visibility. I describe it as a photographic exploration of light, texture, motion, and atmosphere in all weather conditions. Visibility is 76 pages long and has 53 photographs presented singly or in pairs. For this version of the book, I went with an 10 inch by 8 inch landscape orientation design with an image wrap hard cover. I designed a simple cover in Adobe Illustrator and selected premium matte paper for the book.
It is scheduled to be delivered on December 28th. I am so excited to see and hold this book which has been 6+ years in the making. I can’t wait to show it to you in the next issue (present Jeff thinks future Jeff will publish it on 1/1/2023)
In the meantime, I would love to read and see what you are working on. Drop me a line in the comments below or send me an email at jeff@jeffreymkarp.com.
Warm regards and Happy Holidays to you and your loved ones!
Jeff
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