These are the photos from the St. Malo trip that I wish to use for my zine. I want to follow a vintage monochrome aesthetic, and to make the images appear this way using editing techniques in Lightroom Classic.

One of these techniques includes using the tone curve, to heighten and lower specific tones, and maintaining this similar curve in all of my final images to achieve the same effect.

I’ve recently started experimenting with using the radial and gradient editing features to use exposure and sharpness settings to subtly bring more focus to the subjects of my image, and it’s something I practiced heavily with my photos for my zine. I’m impressed with how they look and can barely notice the editing, but I’ve also noticed that I’m significantly more absorbed into these images and I believe this is a fantastic technique.

For my front cover, I wanted to establish the minimalistic style with the placement and font of the title of my zine – ‘malo.’ – in the bottom left corner. I decided to use only lowercase for the title as I thought it would bring more attention to the cover image instead, as I find uppercase to be more attention-grabbing and bold. I also find the photograph that I used to be quite appealing, as there isn’t much going on, but it’s still attractive to the eye and has a mixture of both hard and soft tones.

For my first pages, I want to introduce the reader to St. Malo, and to subtly display the town’s rich heritage and it’s popularity, which I plan to expand on in the text I want to add on the right-hand page, discussing the fortifications and the links the place has to WWII.

The next four pages are double-page spreads, featuring a landscape of the architecture and two scenes in one of the children’s parks. I think the buildings illustrate the history of St Malo and place it within a specific time period, opposing modern architecture and its placement within bustling cities, meanwhile the shots in the park display activity in the town today, showing St Malo’s adaptation to both the modern world and the rise of tourism; still remaining an interesting and beautiful place.

On these pages, I plan to discuss the small resident population within the castle walls and how St Malo is a transitional space for tourists to explore and eat, not really as a space for long stays or to live in, much like it has been throughout its history. I used two photos of a server in a restaurant and a couple looking for somewhere to eat to reinforce this subject into the reader’s mind.

This double-page spread features an image that I think clearly demonstrates Cartier-Bresson’s style – focusing heavily on the sharp angles and geometry featured in his work at St. Malo, which I’m very proud of.

On these pages, I want to discuss St Malo as a “human environment,” by which I mean that despite the town’s idealised reputation as a gorgeous tourist destination, and as a place to ‘escape’ to if you’d like, the residents and tourists still face their own difficulties here, much like anywhere else in the world, such as purse-snatchers, people who have to beg to survive, and witnessing animals tied up with chains and abandoned, similar to the photos on these pages, or how it appeared to me as I walked past.

I used another double page spread to end the zine on a more positive note, showing people enjoying their time on one of the pools on the beach queued up to use the diving board.

For the back page, I just placed a similar landscape of the town’s architecture to mirror the front cover of the zine.

Zines are self-made, printed set of images used to tell a story. The word comes from the word “magazine” as it follows the same style, and sometimes layout.

Some of the most famous photography zines:

• Chloe Sevigny — No Time For Love.
• Daniel Arnold — Photos.
• Hamburger Eyes — Celly Brain.
• Ari Marcopolous — Directory.

This is my zine mood board:

My zine will be 5.8”x 8.2” and have 16 pages but zines can be any shape and size.

Homeless dog without its owner as the front (and back) cover to attract attention with a title of “City Of St.Malo”.

Double spread of tourists and locals getting food from what looks to be a small business.

2 images. One being foreign tourists who looks to be trying figure out where they are and cool down from the sun. The other image consists of people eating at a restaurant with a couple passing by. I chose this layout because I thought it looked good, unique.

These images are similar as it is of the same restaurant, but I wanted to capture people eating from a low angle and the activity of the restaurant, but also wanted to capture an image of people walking by and making the exposure time longer to create a blurry effect, whilst the people sitting down look normal.

Normal double page spread of an image of a small restaurant with passing people, and added a boarder to make the whole zine look even.

I liked this layout because it involves two couples young and old, gives a good contrast in the images, and shows them enjoying their time at St.Malo.

I wanted this image to be double page spread just because of how funny and cool this guy looks, and it shows the variety of people who visit or even live in St.Malo.

I chose this for the last image to also show the poverty that lives in St.Malo, and how its not all good, there are always areas in places which have this. And there is a dog.

-A photo zine is a self-made, printed issue built of photos and captions. The term comes from the word “magazine”, as zines follow the style of magazines with headings, text, and illustrations put on a grid. An important feature of a photo zine is visual storytelling.

-A photography zine is a tool that photographers can use to tell a visual story, to inform an audience about a specific topic or issue, to showcase and advertise a new idea or simply create a preview of an ongoing project. 

Inspiration

Cover:

I like the idea of a colour theme (except I was thinking about using black and white. I also like the border to add detail and how it draws attention the small photograph in the middle. The small photograph causes the cover to be minimalistic and give a taste of the zine without revealing too much. I think this is something I will do for my own zine, however I would like to include a title.

Inside:

I like the use of blank space and how the photos don’t use up the entire page. However, I might use writing like quotes to slightly fill up the space without making it too crowded.

I think this is also a successful layout option as the slightly different image sizes look very effective.

Photos that fill up the entire page also look very good, the white border left around it drawing attention to the image in the middle. I will use this layout technique for some of my favourite images. Instead of the white background however, I will make it black.

I want my zine to be quite minimalistic and simple, with some bits of writing and pages with various layouts. I want my layout to be quite meaningful, arranging the photos using the composition of the photo itself (for example, positioning a photo of a person walking to the left of the image on the left side of the page). I want the reader to notice these small yet meaningful choices and how it ties all the photos together.

STORY: What is your story?
Describe in:

• 3 words- People in St. Malo

• A sentence- Exploring the citizens of St. Malo and the tourists, as well as their environments

• A paragraph- The year 1960 marked the end of the 12 years it took to rebuild St. Malo, and ever since it has been a place overflowing with people- tourists and residents wondering its streets. St. Malo is a place for everyone, this was clear as soon as I walked in through the town’s entrance. The warm weather invited a lot of activity, the air filled with a welcoming atmosphere. People were everywhere, eating in restaurants, shopping, exploring the old town. It was difficult to focus on singular individuals, however, after supressing the initial excitement, I began to break the crowds of people up, noticing details. It was a fascinating experience, seeing how both couples and individuals enjoy themselves within the walls of St. Malo. I wanted my photos to be an exploration of people, taking into account the different moods that each person experienced. The idea of loneliness seems to be forgotten about within these walls, the contrast between groups of people, families, couples and individuals being interesting, especially since everyone appeared to be content, whether in others company or just their own.

What is a NARRATIVE?

A narrative is any account of a series of related events or experiences, whether nonfictional or fictional. Narratives can be presented through a sequence of written or spoken words, through still or moving images, or through any combination of these. Some see it as a recount of events, in a more artistic manner.

The word derives from the Latin verb narrare (to tell), which is derived from the adjective gnarus (knowing or skilled).

NARRATIVE: How will you tell your story?

For my zine, I have selected photos that explore people and their surroundings. I think my photos are most effective in black and white, which is why I based my entire zine of these two shades. I will include some typography in my zine, using quotes from Henri Cartier- Bresson (my inspiration) and a short paragraph explaining my reasoning for my theme of photos, and the though that went in. Although most of the photos include people, I have also used a photo of graffiti, as I think it can be be a portrayal of the thoughts that people have. I will only be using real images of St. Malo, as for me AI generated images don’t provoke any feelings of nostalgia.