Usually when I've made my photobooks and zines, they are 3-4 day affairs (of 3-4 hrs work ea) made during a sustained burst of energy. And they usually accomplish their goal of illustrating their singular, selected topic. This endeavor was different, it encompassed a larger time frame, encompassing a larger range of issues that affected and changed the state of a city from pre thru post Covid. I've done stuff on San Francisco (and Covid) before, and you've probably seen most of these pictures before (although it does contain around a dozen new mages). But this particular project encompasses more diverse, disparate influences, incl: crime, homelessness, addiction, Covid, technology, employment, etc. It's a disturbing if uneven glimpse at a steady deluge of conflicting plagues that beset this once thriving city.
Include too many photos of one particular topic or issue and you can go top heavy on tangents that make it hard to reintegrate, not enough and they can seem like distractions or a greatest hits compilation. Maintaining a sense of balance was a constant consideration; I could have shown more 'depressing' images for sure, but one grows weary of that quickly. So exactly how many photos depicting various aspects, negative and otherwise, does one intersperse to sustain a diversity of interest without betraying the topic at hand, one basically illustrating the downfall of a community at large?
Editing this book was ironically similar to writing a short story, although the analogy is far from perfect. I wanted some sense of narrative, the photographs being the sentences, and how you display them, the punctuation. You can bend and formulate words, sentences, paragraphs to your liking to better fit your storyline as far as pace, sequencing and emotional narrative. It's harder with a series of set images meant to exist as independent structures- your options are more limited, basically: where and when do you present them (in the storyline and on the page), how large do you present them and how do you present them, solely or in groups? Those are your major story telling options in a book of photographs- besides the actual content within the photos themselves. And no, I'm not getting into captions, since there are none.
Fortunately, by using Blurb's magazine format, one has more options as to how to present one's photos. Two horizontal photos on one page, a slightly larger solo, a full page vertical, and yes- a double truck horizontal spread. And this was my first venture using all the above for maximum impact.
Broken City! is my swan song to a second home that has been hopelessly left reeling by leaders, laws and attitudes comfortable enough to evade their own neglect. The pictures only hint at the world of hurt that plagues it, the colors way too pretty and cheerful- again, who would look otherwise? I myself now opt to take the bus to work rather than dodge the landmines of drug addled zombies, feces and detritus that blocks the way and wears-at-you-daily.* Seventies "Drop Dead, New York" was never in question of coming back, it was literally too big to fail, but a city of less than a million, with a downtown hollowed out to the core is a much more vulnerable, dubious animal.
*That's the very street (see 0:36) I used to walk everyday to work, and now bus, and that ain't no prize either 'cause Crazy also boards the bus (also the street where the photo on p.7 was taken). About 2 of ten passengers actually pay their bus fare; one time while waiting on a red light, an impatient passenger knocked out a window and casually jumped out- when ya gotta go, ya gotta go!
