Contact prints --> Zine

[ericdan]

I've been working on a simple project for 8 months now. Been using an Olympus XA2 to document my daily commute. I leave the house 30 minutes early every day and shoot before getting on the train. I am not sure yet what to do with all these pictures. It's kind of nice to see the same place change as I move through different seasons. Even different weekdays look different from each other.
One idea was to make a contact sheet of each roll and make that into a zine or booklet.

How do I get it from contact sheet size to small booklet? reproduce the contact sheets into a smaller format via a plain old photo copier?

 

[bdial]

Most copiers can't do greyscale well. Scanning them is probably the best way.

 

[ericdan]

You'd need a pretty big scanner for that. Even an Epson V750 only does 8x10. contact sheets would be larger than that.

 

[Carriage]

How big are your contact sheets?

 

[bdial]

Depending on the way you cut the strips, you can fit a roll of 36 exposures on an 8x10 sheet

 

[Carriage]

It's more realistically 35 frames but yeah, I thought 8x10 was the most common size people used.

 

[ericdan]

I cut mine in strips of 6 frames. so I have 7x 6-frame strips. I didn't think that fits on an 8x10 sheet.

 

[Mick Fagan]

Six sixes are thirty six, sounds like you are using the most of your tiny camera and getting 38 frames per roll, as I used to when I picked up my first XA camera in 1980.

Essentially, 36 frames are a roll, 6 strips of 6 frames, fit perfectly onto an 8x10" sheet of paper.

Perhaps you will have to waste a bit of film and just expose 36 frames per roll, or leave the extra frames off the contact sheet, your call.

Mick.

Ps: sounds like a nice project.

 

[ericdan]

Hey Mick,

thanks. I think that's a good idea. I've actually ripped film before in the XA2 by gong too far past the 36th frame.
I'm not actually doing that consciously though. I just have to pay more attention when I get close to the end of a roll.

 

[Michael W]

Perhaps reconsider doing it as a small booklet, where the frames might be hard to see. Blurb now have a magazine option - I saw one done by a friend, it was a good size and also the B&W reproduction was accurate.

 

[gone]

Here's another idea. As my writing guru used to say, edit, edit, edit! In order to keep the viewer's interest, if it were me, I would use only the very, very best of the shots. If you want to put a lot on one page that's fine, but just use the best, and maybe put them in some sort of chronological or themed order.

On the few but much appreciated times I'm around to hear a favorable comment of my prints, I usually say "yes, but you didn't see the other 99 failures!" And they're not going to.

I agree w/ Michael. 35mm contacts may be too small. 6x6 gives a good impression, but smaller than that is just too darned hard to see.

 

[Deardorff5x7]

What is a zine?

 

[ericdan]

What is a zine?

Zine.

 

[ic-racer]

I used to do photocopier art in the 1980s when in Art school. You should be able to do reductions.

 

[nawagi]

XA2 is a blast - but consider picking up a 6x7 or 6x9 folder and moving up to 120 film. It won't have the 'stealth' of the XA2, but the negs are very contactable. Trim 'em to size, stack 'em up, glue up a cover and a backer, drill 2 holes and go Chicago post binding - you'll have the world's smallest coffee table book that would kill any 'zine!

NWG