My zine — “Kwai Chung Plaza Fragments” why and how to make a zine
For those who wants to purchase this zine (US$8 + cost for shipping), please contact me here, or at any of my social media handles.
Specification of the zine
Size: A5
Pages: 52 double sided
Paper: 128gsm art paper (matte)
Binding: saddle stitch
Reason for photographing
So I have been talking about other people’s work here for quite some time. In fact I myself have been making my own work too.
During the past few years, I have a feeling that Hong Kong is rapidly changing, but not for the better. This reason motivated me to set out and photograph “Kwai Chung Plaza” — a unique place that I am familiar with, and a place that in my opinion represents how Hong Kong is like to me.
Kwai Chung Plaza, when I was photographing this 30-yearold mall, I realised this mall has represented how Hong Kong is like to me. If anyone was setting out to find “Hong Kong
style”, this will be the place to reference to. While there are numerous extravagantly finished shopping malls, expensive brand name shops are a norm here, none of them had such an impression to me.The 90s styled decor, dim fluorescent lighting, shops with every variety of street food, unbranded clothings, small locally run business that mainly serves the neighbourhood,
and the (mostly) lack of chain shops. Like Hong Kong, the mall has been constantly changing, from the quiet, unnoticeable mall, then came the invasion of numerous street food stores, and now, the number of crane games arcades seemed to on the rise. This blend of variety made Kwai Chung Plaza to be perhaps, one of the most unique of its kind in Hong Kong.Perhaps it is the nostalgia, or perhaps of its down-to-earth nature, or maybe it is the street food, Kwai Chung Plaza to me, is unmistakably, Hong Kong style.
- from the foreword of the zine
How I photographed the project
Since I live in close proximity of the location, I was available to visit the mall very frequently. Each session, I would walk at the mall aimlessly for around half an hour photographing whatever I find interesting to me. In total, it took me around 6 months to accumulate enough photographs to piece together a cohesive photo project.
For the entire project, I used the Ricoh GRII, as I prefer something low profile to photograph in the crowded space of the mall. The small size and the wide angle lens was very suitable for the job. Since I carry the GRII with me almost all the time anyway, I was able to photograph whenever I happen to go near the place.
Reason for creating a zine
I feel that having a series of photographs printed out, compiled to the form of a book is something that is quite special. Especially when the majority of my photographs only exist on my hard drive and my computer screen. While looking at photographs on the screen is fine and all but it just feels and looks better when a photograph is in physical form.
By putting my photographs together, it creates meaning to your work. I think most people have this misconception about photographs is that: They view photographs in singularity. When you compile your photographs to a “project”, you are inviting people to view your photographs coherently (aka: a series of selected photographs), hence giving you a way to communicate, create a narrative, express something through photography, which is what I hope to do with this zine.
Things to know before printing
A disclaimer:
I am no expert in printing, the followings are just what I have learnt during my making of a few zines. I have received satisfactory results with these settings so far but I would recommend you to consult your printer to know what they need to work with.
Colour profile
To transfer a digital photograph to printable format, they must be transferred from RGB to CMYK or Grayscale to be able to print. After transferring to either format, there will be a slight, or negligible difference depending on how attentive to detail you are. If you do not do the conversion by yourself, the printer might do it for you, which means that you have less control on how the file is going to print.
I have slightly increase the brightness of the photographs after converting to CMYK since printed matters are not glowing like a computer screen so they tend to look a little bit less bright.
After you adjusted the images to you liking, they are ready to be inserted into InDesign.
When your file is at last ready to export, check with your printer to see which “colour conversion” and “destination” setting to use. These profiles are designed to suit different types of papers. Although for my case, since I am printing with a low budget, they told me to leave it at “no colour conversion”
Result: The images looks slightly warmer than I expected, but I guess that’s what you get when you are on a budget.
Inserting photographs and words in InDesign
Design is mostly personal preference so I won’t talk too much here. I used the “place” function to insert photographs onto the pages, then holding “shift” to drag the images to resize (Keep aspect ratio).
Guides can be activated on the right hand side column: Guides → Show guides
Crop mark and bleed
One important thing to know is when getting your file ready to print is to include bleed and crop marks to allow margins for error.
Referring to the photo above, crop marks are the black lines at the corners of the image, showing where the printer is going to trim the paper. While bleed is how the image is extended beyond the crop marks to ensure the image is large enough to cover the entire frame. The norm is to include 3mm of bleed at all sides of the document.
The reasons for doing so is machines sometimes cannot trim the paper with 100% precision, so it is a safety measure to prevent having unwanted white borders.
Like changing colour profile, the printer might include crop marks and bleed for you, but I do not like to take chances so I decided to do it myself to avoid nasty surprises.
*In the above example, the black lines on the edge of the frame are the crop marks to show the printer where to trim the paper.
*The red rectangle marks the actual content that stays on the paper, the content outside the rectangle are “Bleed” .
Conclusion
I hope you learnt something about zine making here, or even piqued your interested in making one yourself. Am I going to make profit (or break even…) by selling the zine? Very unlikely. As I have mentioned before, photography is an on-going conversation (forgot where did I heard it first…) , photobooks, zines and photo-projects alike are materials to keep the conversation going.
If you would like to grab one for US$8, please contact me here or through one of my social media handles.
Thanks for reading.
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