Proposal

What will I be doing? 

For my zine I will be focusing on the skate scene in Bristol. I will be searching the city for skate spots to photograph skaters in action, talking to them to gather an idea of what the Bristol skate scene is and what it means to them and hopefully gaining an insight into their world. By doing this I will hopefully manage to gain more of a connection with them and this connection will hopefully resonate through the images.

I want the zine to be predominantly images, with very little text.

For the images I want to use a plethora of different styles, such as:

• Action shots 
• Portraiture 
• Landscape/Urban landscape
• Lifestyle/Documentary 
• Images of the skaters living there lives (Images not just in the skate park) 

I want the images to have a bold gritty feel so I will be experimenting with film to begin with. As well as this working for the aesthetic of the images it will be good to work with film as I have shyed away from it in the past due to the irritation of noise, dust spots, water marks and the like.

I will also be working with digital, as there are certain conditions that film isn’t suited to e.g. having to take quick images in dark environments.

For the zine its self I am still unsure on how I will be creating it. I think I will try and stick with the disposable, easy to produce, cheapish material ethos but I may make it a bit more substantial. Substituting the photocopier paper for a slightly higher quality photo paper but refraining from turning it into a photo book.

What is a Zine?

For this assignment I will be creating a zine. A zine is fundamentally a small, inexpensive magazine usually produced by a solo unprofessional/semi-professional or group. These zines are usually limited in numbers and have a small circulation, being local to an area or scene.

The ethos behind a zine is that they usually relate closely to one scene or subculture e.g. fanzines which were produced by fans of bands and sold at gigs. These fanzines were usually produced by arranging items on a piece of paper and then photocopying it. This made them extremely cheap to produce and cheap to buy, making the zine a disposable piece of work and this ethos remains to this day.

In a nutshell a zine is a small current disposable book/magazine made by people who are interested in something for people who are interested in something. (Or at least that is my understanding).