Graffiti Journal One
A Video Zine
Dear Reader
I’ve been wanting to get into zine making with my photographs for the last couple of years, especially since my Fuji X100VI came into and changed my photography life. I know it is a very hyped camera, but you have to find your tools for yourself. Another example of this for me is that I’ve used the same Waterman Carène fountain pen for over 20 years for all my writing. Sometimes the tools do make the difference, the paper you print or write on. But I as always digress. Zines. The thing is I’m not able to get my head around the Affinity Publisher software that was recommended to me to make zines and I don’t know anyone to show me. There are no zine workshops near me that I’ve come across and I’ve watched every YouTube on the subject, but for some reason it is not something I can get down.
So to counter this for now - maybe someone reading this might be a zine maker and be able to help me - I’ve decided to create occasional video zines. I also thought to make a screen saver version of this video where the images stay up for 2 or 3 minutes a piece… do let me know if you’d like that. Actually I’m gonna do that anyway for myself.
I have loved street art my whole life. Where I live - in the north, we are very short on art, and the art galleries that there were either are filled with typical municipal art that hasn’t been rehung in 200 years, or the government has cut the funding for art and galleries because they don’t want us having greater dimensionality in our lives, same goes with the loss or computerisation of libraries I would say. But art always finds a way, and there is a human need to make marks, from tagging names to great freezes, from train colours to subway scrawls, I always find myself grateful. Expression and reclamation, statement, being.
The video below is a bunch of recent photographs I’ve made of street art. The music is by myself under my beautifulnoise/skin name, I’ll be putting the album Electric Pulse out on my birthday this year, 25th July, just on Bandcamp, not on streaming. I was in the midst of recording this album which is electronic, and another sadly unfinished all guitar based album which I was going release side by side, but the string of close deaths we have suffered in the last few years, stopped my making music. I’m not back properly yet, but my creativity is well on the ascent again in writing, in photography and just slowly in music in that I found this album on my studio hard drive, gave it a listen, decided to throw one track away, or put it aside at least and finish off the track you can hear part of in the video which is called ‘Flesh and Blood.’
I hope you like the images and music
Love
John
This was really cool! I think the music added such a presence to the photographs… Making it come together and alive as a street scene… I hope you continue with this art form… More more!🎈
It's good that the video does not run through the images quickly, and the music you've added works well with the photographs. It might be interesting to compile them all in a single image for the end.
Street or graffiti art is a culture unto itself. Some years ago I saw a very good documentary about graffiti artists in the Washington, D.C., area (I'm sorry I don't recall the title). Their "tags" were all different, unique to each group, and there was a lot of competition among them. Some were quite good artists.