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Saturday, February 23, 2019

Rogue Photo: Call for Proposals

I've done a few publications on Blurb over the last year, working my way toward a sort of an aesthetic, under the vague moniker of "Rogue Photo" which hits more or less the right note of rebellious but not entirely serious. Here are the first three covers:





The progression is very much toward a black and white duotone cover with red notes. I have added a red spine, more or less on impulse, and I like how that's working out.

So, that's the aesthetic of this notional imprint thing I call Rogue Photo.

I'm thinking of it as a series, numbered and dated, and occasional out-of-sequence "production of" one-off items as well. Pictured above are issues 1 and 2, and the Zoning Zine is an off-sequence one-off.

Content-wise I lean toward what I wrote out in this Manifesto a few weeks ago.

I could make these things all day more or less forever, I think, but part of what I want to do is collaborate. Hence, this Call for Proposals.

The Manifesto is not submission guidelines, it's just where I am at. I am as likely to be interested in ideas that violently oppose mine as I am ideas that align with them. I do prefer black and white photos, and I am almost certain to want some combination of text and pictures by the time we're done.

It's best if you have an idea, some sort of fairly clear concept, and some pictures, but also that you are stuck. If you're not stuck, get outta here and finish your own thing, there's no need for me here. If you need encouragement, I am happy to yell at you to finish it from time to time.

I am not a promoter, I bring no audience. If you have an audience and a desire to make something to sell to them, great. I've for some ideas on how that might be done. Whether some final product would sell 0 copies or 10,000 copies is not of great interest to me, but I am open to pretty much any possibilities there.

What I do bring is a collaborator with ideas (me) and you can judge for yourself whether I have good ideas or bad ideas. I also write, and can provide words. Or pictures. Or both. Again, I am idiosyncratic here, it is up to you to decide whether you want to try it out or not. I also design, and I think I generally can muddle my way through to something that is at the very least interesting and sometimes quite good.

Got an idea? Got a concept? Got some pictures? Write me an email at amolitor@gmail.com and let's do something. I have a couple things people sent me earlier, and I am open to pursuing those with those people.

You will always retain all rights to your work, and can back out at any time. If, by some weird confluence of events, money gets involved, we'll sort that out when the time comes.

6 comments:

  1. I see your progression on this. It is the Photo Joke: If it isn't good put something RED in it. If it still isn't good, put it in a RED frame.
    Good luck with your project.

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  2. You may be interested in this: https://theonlinephotographer.typepad.com/the_online_photographer/2019/02/the-intangible-tangibles-of-the-immediate-tangent.html

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  3. Andrew, I was about to submit a design concept but stayed still when I read your last line. Can you clarify what you mean by if at some point money gets involved? You are not running ads, or putting a price tag on Rogue Photo, correct?

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    1. *My* books on blurb including the Rogue Photo labeled ones, have a very snall markup, I have so far made something like $11. If I get to $25, blurb will pay out, but for now it's imaginary money!

      If someone came to me and said "I have 10,000 instagram followers who have been pestering me to do a book, can you help?" we might find ourselves in a situation where we might sell a couple hundred books at a modest markup (I would push back on a Large Markup).

      I can, if I stretch, imagine that there might even be as much as $1000 at stake, in some strange situation. This is money on a scale where some negotiation has to occur, and my point is that the negotiation would occur.

      I don't want to commit to "oh heck I'll just give it all to you" because, well, what if I contributed a lot of content and did a lot of work? I'm a nice guy, but I'm not a charity.

      I am aware enough to be certain that the conversations are had early and often, to avoid getting backed into an awkward corner. By the time there's any money in play, we'd know where we stand.

      And, most of the time, I don't expect there to be any money on the table. The standard approach would probably be to put a $0 markup on collaborative projects, just to make division of the proceeds easy: dividing 0 up comes out the same way whether we're doing a 20:80 split or a 50:50 split.

      Does that help?

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