Process 017 ☼ Beauty Is Not Hard To Find, But Easy To Overlook
Giveaway: mystery pack of 35mm film from Analogue Wonderland
Dear friends,
Today I’m sharing some thoughts on my daily photo walks in Vancouver during the pandemic and how they inspired a much larger project than I had anticipated, culminating in my upcoming photo book “Notice”.
For this week’s giveaway we have mystery pack of unusual 35mm film courtesy of my friends at Analogue Wonderland.
It Takes A Village
Since I last shared an update about my upcoming photo book “Notice” we’ve been hard at work to get it finished up and off to the printers. I say “we”, because making a photo book can take a village. I feel very lucky to be virtually collaborating with a dream team of pals to make “Notice” the best photo book it can be.
Designer (and photographer!) Dan Rubin is designing his heart out and putting up with my constant stream of messages about tiny tweaks and big ideas. Writer (and photographer!) Craig Mod is writing a guest essay. Strategist (and photographer!) Kerry Laster is in my corner with marketing/partnership tips. Video editor (and photographer!) Jake Wangner is editing up some gorgeous footage shot by cinematographer (and photographer!) Alex Fleming. Letterer (and type designer!) Jessica Hische has created a beautiful logo mark for the imprint. And there are more.
Not Hard To Find, But Easy To Overlook
I love listening to podcasts when I go for a run. One of my favorites is the Tim Ferriss podcast and on a recent episode he said something that stuck with me.
Tim O’Reilly is one of my favorite thinkers and one of his practices [is] to take a photograph of one flower each day, and that is a practice of recognizing beauty. It’s not that beauty is hard to find, it’s that it is easy to overlook. Cultivating the eye and the awareness to spot beauty whether in a flower or in something that would normally be found repulsive like decay is endlessly interesting to me.
This notion of training our eyes to spot and find beauty is exactly what is at the core of my daily notice walks. As I walked around Vancouver, I’d notice flowers that had not yet opened a few days earlier. A few days later those same flowers had started to decay.
To witness changes in my surroundings, to truly notice them, made me feel more connected to my environment. I felt more present and part of a greater whole.
Later on, during editing, I began to notice patterns in images taken many weeks apart. A garden hose and a garden far apart yet echoing each other as if traced.
Reflections in a puddle forming warped circle shapes echoing the way in which the midday sun burst through the window of a parked car.
At times I found myself unconsciously returning to nearly identical compositions as if following a mathematical formula to divide and arrange a single image storyline.
Some days I noticed and documented moments without being aware of it until after the fact. As if I developed muscle memory for noticing. I might get home after 3 hours of walking around Vancouver feeling like I didn’t get a single good image, only to find that I got more than on the days where I felt photographically on fire.
It seems to be that the more I walk, the better I see. That is why I am keeping this daily photo walk habit going, with some time off here and there when the Northern European climate here in Amsterdam decides to not give me any light at all some days.
Aside from the flower diptych all images in this newsletter are b-sides from the Vancouver daily notice walks that won’t make the book. I cannot wait to share this photo book and all the images that did make it with you all soon. In the mean time, more updates on the process of making a photo book, every step of the way.
That’s it for this week. I hope you’re inspired to go on your own photo walks, even if it’s just 30 minutes during your lunch break. Beauty is not hard to find, keep shooting.
Yours,
W
Process Giveaway!
My pals Paul and Mary over at Analogue Wonderland have made available a special Analog Mystery Pack of less than usual film stocks. Analogue Wonderland sells more than 200 stocks of film and this will be a random bag of some of the lesser known ones.
To enter email me at hello@wesley.co (please don’t reply to this note but send a separate email) before 11pm EST on December 10th and answer the following question:
What was your proudest creative moment or accomplishment of 2020?
Can be small or big. My answer: starting my daily photo walks in Vancouver, honing in on a visual language to tell this story, and turning it from a project into a photo book (almost done!)
One winner will be randomly drawn and notified via email. This giveaway is for Process subscribers only. Subscribe below by clicking this button:
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Process is a weekly letter from Wesley Verhoeve.
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