Journals, Zines & Photobooks: From Capture to Print

What do Susan Sontag, Leonardo da Vinci, Frida Kahlo, Albert Einstein, and Virginia Woolf have in common? They all kept journals as a centerpiece of their creative life—a tradition open to anyone willing to open their notebook and begin. For photographers, journaling is the first step in reimagining your imagery and bringing your work to life as a magazine or photobook. 

Join photographer and book artist Dan Milnor for a deep-dive exploration of how photographers can embrace the journaling process to expand their storytelling skillset and ultimately build a powerful visual sequence. In this hands-on workshop in Dan’s hometown of Santa Fe, you are inspired to embrace the entire lifecycle of a visual story, moving from image creation through the completion of a final magazine or photobook.

We begin by learning how to photograph with journaling and the photobook in mind through visits to unique sites around Santa Fe, before returning to the classroom to bring your images to life. Utilizing the printers in the Workshops’ state-of-the-art Digital Lab, we transfer our photographs to notebooks of choice. Next, we explore the hands-on journaling process of experimentation and collage. Guided by Dan’s demonstrations, we cut, scan, glue, rework, transform, and embellish the pages of our notebooks. We learn to build relationships between images, expanding narratives in new directions and deepening your understanding of your own work along the way.

Next, you learn more advanced techniques for creating zines and photobooks. After reworking your images and sequences through journaling, we bring this iterative process into the digital world. Dan introduces the class to Blurb’s BookWright software—a powerful application for designing, sequencing, and printing photobooks and zines—and provides a crash course on Adobe InDesign’s most important tools for bookmaking. You have the opportunity to practice and master these digital techniques, allowing you to continue creating polished photobooks after the workshop’s conclusion.

Through time spent photographing the beauty and uniqueness of New Mexico, balanced with time in the classroom, you gain the skills and confidence needed to communicate your stories through hands-on and digital techniques alike. Bring your curiosity and sense of adventure to Santa Fe for four days of imagination, creativity, and the opportunity to bring your images to life in new and exciting printed ways.