Tag: photobooks

Melbourne Art Book Fair 2024

As usual this year I’m sitting the Melbourne Photobook Collective stall at the Melbourne Art Book Fair. This year I managed to push two new publications out.

One “Zine” entitled Steps & Ladders is an offshoot of #emptyshops. Forty pages laser printed on 80gsm paper staple bound, edition of 6 with a 210gsm coloured cover.


A pile of books ready for sale each has a uniquely coloured cover, all are titled Steps & Ladder

The other a body of work created during Melbourne’s Lockdowns from 2020 to 2022. Trigger Warning is a rumination on the time spent in lockdown and its affects on my creative activities. It is 40 pages printed on 80gsm paper with 30 images and is staple bound, with a 210gsm yellow cover.

Cover image of Trigger Warning

Cover image of the zine ‘Trigger Warning’

About the author.

Stuart Murdoch is an Artist and Part time Photo Educator, with over 30 years of teaching experience. He has also nearly 40 years of silver gelatin printing under his belt. He contemplates many things photographic. His ruminations include his own work as well other’s and the aspects of technology that impact on the sharing and consumption of Photographs. And of course the act of making and taking photographs in the 21st century. Photobooks sit quite high on his radar too these days.
☛ Website | Flickr | Instagram| s2z digital garden | Tumblr | Stuart’s Ko-fi page,leave a tip, or buy a print

New Photobook & Sundry Upcoming Events

A selection of books made since about 2004 to 2022
A selection of books made since about 2004 to 2022

I am in the end stages of a new photobook. It’s titled Not Landscape. I am hoping the print run of 20 copies will be here in time for the photo 2022 weekend photobook fair 21st and 22nd of May. This book came together relatively quickly. After discovering a website of obscure avant garde art UbuWeb, I watched a rare video by John Baldessari, titled “I shall not make any more boring art”. Baldessari had also made a series of photographs in the 70s that poked fun at the “rules” of photography, seen here on his website. Also here.

Concurrently I had been mulling over how I made an earlier book using Blurb. ‘What’s the ugliest part of your body?’. When making it. I had decided to compromise on its layout and not crop the images resulting in a book that few people handled correctly as it was landscape orientation. As a consequence it had lots of wasted white space. I feel this didn’t add anything to the idea. This time I decided that I would print full bleed, and use pictures that were portrait in orientation. I also wanted to add some text to engage the reader. So after perusing my library and searching the internet I found of series of snippets of text and quotes that posed pointed questions about landscape, landscape art, and landscape photography. With these two ideas in mind I collated as many images as I could that were portrait in format, ie Not Landscape, the book’s title, printed out a set of them. Then started editing them into a book.

A spread from the first draft of my 2022 book, Not Landscape.
A spread from the first draft of my 2022 book, Not Landscape.
A spread from the first draft of my 2022 book, Not Landscape.
A spread from the first draft of my 2022 book, Not Landscape.

I have some copies of my ‘What’s the ugliest part of your body?’ left. These are $15.00 each, and after making them now consider it unlikely I will make a second edition.

The cover of my 2017 book, What's the ugliest part of your body?
The cover of my 2017 book, What’s the ugliest part of your body?

I have one copy of my book Contact for sale as well.

Contact my Pandemic inspired photobook from 2020/2021
Contact my Pandemic inspired photobook from 2020/2021

So pop on down to the Melbourne Art Book Fair this weekend 17th to the 20th of March, to purchase a copy of either ‘What’s the ugliest part of your body?’ or Contact. Hopefully Not Landscape will be on offer as well. Our stand is Melbourne Photobook Collective.

Alternatively the Photo 2020 is running a photobook weekend there will be some of my books there too, 21st May [12 to 7pm] and 22nd May [12 to 4pm]  at PSC 37-47 Thistlethwaite St, South Melbourne.

About the author.

Stuart Murdoch is an Artist and Part time Photo Educator, with over 30 years of teaching experience. He has also nearly 40 years of silver gelatin printing under his belt. He contemplates many things photographic. His ruminations include his own work as well other’s and the aspects of technology that impact on the sharing and consumption of Photographs. And of course the act of making and taking photographs in the 21st century. Photobooks sit quite high on his radar too these days.
☛ Website | Flickr | Instagram| s2z digital garden | Tumblr | Stuart’s Ko-fi page,leave a tip, or buy a print

Photobook Club Melbourne?


Last weekend I participated in and helped lead a small forum discussion and talk on Photobooks. The workshop was entitled, ‘Reading Photobooks with Photobook Club Melbourne’. The event was held at the CCP in Fitzroy as part of Photo 2021

There were 8 speakers. The event lasted an hour. There were approximately 30 attendees. The attendees were split into small groups of about 10.  The speakers worked in small groups also. My group had myself, Suzanne Phoenix, and Dr. Kristian Haggblom. Each presenter was asked to bring one or two books and discuss them. In the end we all had a least 4 books each.

A small group discuss Photobooks at the CCP Fitzroy
One of several goups who discussed photobooks at the CCP on Sunday the 28th of February 2021, as part of Photo 2021 image courtesy CCP

For about 15 minutes each group there was a brief discussion about the books that were chosen. Continue reading “Photobook Club Melbourne?”

Tweaks, Additions, & Other News

Photobook Workshop

Next weekend I am participating in an event at the CCP around the Photo 2021 festival.

Titled, Reading Photobooks with Photobook Club Melbourne, .  Several photobook makers, academics and artists will, ask, ‘What does it mean to ‘read’ a photobook?’.  Join this meetup with Photobook Club Melbourne, and discover the new perspectives and depths of meaning that can come from exploring a photobook in a group discussion.

Photobook News

I’m considering a second edition of my book, Body Bags and other Misdemeanours for the Melbourne Art Book Fair next month.

One final thought, much has been made about Facebook’s response to the federal Government’s attempts at legislation. All anyone needs to do is subscribe to newsletters or newsfeeds of all the major media outlets and your knowledge of current events will be fresh. It’s how we did it before Facebook. It is how I am doing it right now.

Changes Afoot

I have tweaked my blog.

There is now a follow button at the top of the sidebar navigation on the right. If you want to be kept up to date on the goings on around here, just use that button.

Facebook &  The News?

I’m also wondering if I put a link to an Australian news article here then share back to Facebook what will happen. [edit, it does not work, in fact I cant even post a simple link to my blog!]

About the author.

Stuart Murdoch is an Artist and Part time Photo Educator, with over 30 years of teaching experience. He has also nearly 40 years of silver gelatin printing under his belt. He contemplates many things photographic. His ruminations include his own work as well other’s and the aspects of technology that impact on the sharing and consumption of Photographs. And of course the act of making and taking photographs in the 21st century. Photobooks sit quite high on his radar too these days.
☛ Website | Flickr | Instagram| s2z digital garden | Tumblr | Stuart’s Ko-fi page,leave a tip, or buy a print

On Photographs : David Campany

Cover of David Campany's new book.Seriously want this!

On Photographs : David Campany

Is it possible to describe a photograph without interpreting it? Can a viewer ever be as dispassionate as the mechanism of a camera? And how far can a photographer’s intentions determine responses to their image, decades after it was made? These are just a few questions that David Campany eloquently addresses in On Photographs. In the tradition of Susan Sontag and John Berger, Campany explores the tensions inherent to the photographic medium – between art and document, chance and intention, permanence and malleability of meaning – as well as the significance of authorship, performance, time and reproduction.

David  Campany’s website, & instagram

About the author.

Stuart Murdoch is an Artist and Part time Photo Educator, with over 30 years of teaching experience. He has also nearly 40 years of silver gelatin printing under his belt. He contemplates many things photographic. His ruminations include his own work as well other’s and the aspects of technology that impact on the sharing and consumption of Photographs. And of course the act of making and taking photographs in the 21st century. Photobooks sit quite high on his radar too these days.
☛ Website | Flickr | Instagram| s2z digital garden | Tumblr | Stuart’s Ko-fi page,leave a tip, or buy a print

Antipodean Photobook

Antipodean Photobooks Blog

Doug Spowart and Victoria Cooper’s new website the Antipodean Photobook has launched.

About the author.

Stuart Murdoch is an Artist and Part time Photo Educator, with over 30 years of teaching experience. He has also nearly 40 years of silver gelatin printing under his belt. He contemplates many things photographic. His ruminations include his own work as well other’s and the aspects of technology that impact on the sharing and consumption of Photographs. And of course the act of making and taking photographs in the 21st century. Photobooks sit quite high on his radar too these days.
☛ Website | Flickr | Instagram| s2z digital garden | Tumblr | Stuart’s Ko-fi page,leave a tip, or buy a print