What Am I Doing With My Life?: Volume 1

Originally Published July 23, 2019

“If one wants to have something to say, one must begin by living.” —Francis Picabia

Oh hey gang,

Well gang, it’s official—I made my first Zine.

Random Distantly Muffled Voices: “Wow, cool Tim, what is a Zine?”

“A Zine (short for magazine) is a small self published work of original artwork usually reproduced via photocopier.”

Traditional zines are made by hand and are inherently low in quality—giving them a sort of grungy underground charme (that’s French for charm).

I am not grungy.

I am not underground.

This zine was not handmade.

BUT!

Thanks to the crappy subpar quality of my book manufacturer, my zine exhibits many of the flaws associated with a traditional zine.

Each one contains an abundance of unusual flaws—making them individually unique (that’s French for unique).

You’ll find: Scratches, Ink Blotches, Unidentifiable Fingerprints and Smudges, Dents, & Improperly Calibrated Color Systems (wow that’s amazing since this book is in black & white).

I thought about sending these books back to be reprinted (for a second time). Then it occurred to me that the whole debacle goes along with the nature of the zine itself.

This is a zine of nonsense.

It was born of nonsense. It was arranged out of nonsense. Hence, it was printed through nonsense.

This Zine Is Called “What Am I Doing With My Life?”

This is the first Volume (Volume 1).

WAIDWMLBOOK-3 — This is a photo of my zine—surrounded by things that make me look like an interesting creative person.

“Almost twenty years ago, I snapped a photo of my friends with a disposable camera. To this day I have no idea what is happening in the picture—or what compelled me to press the shutter. Back then, I had never heard of The Decisive Moment. I had no photography skills—only my instinct to document.” —My Zine

WAIDWML Book--33.jpg — This is the photo I was talking about in the quote from my book.

Then almost 20 years later—I made this photo:

The photos were nearly identical—both in composition, subject, & nonsensicalness.

Then—something occurred to me. What if I go through my photos and pick out images that are equal in nonsensicalness?

That’s when I came up with the idea for this zine.

WAIDWMLBOOK-1 — This photo illustrates my tireless search for nonsensical images.

I spent thousands of hours, combing through my entire catalog of images—searching for photos that matched the description of weird, zany, and absurde (that’s French for nonsensical).

The results of all my hard work: A poorly printed zine containing roughly 48 pages of black & whiteish (with some hints of green, results may vary) photos.

The title of my zine: What Am I Doing With My Life?, has a dual meaning.

The question I continue to ask myself as I attempt to navigate through the world of photography. This year (2019) marks two decades that I’ve been a photographer. I’m still trying to find out where I belong—all while growing & evolving as an artist.
I want the viewer of this zine to look at each photo and ask the question: “What are (they, he, she, it) doing?