The Doors of Hell Have Opened

 Monday, 25 March, 2024

I hope this little beast of a book will be published in a week or so. The Cover design is done and dusted (see above), and the formatting of the novel for publishing is now also completed. I've just got to do a quick page-by-page check on the final typeset work, and then it will be ready...

What's next? I hope I hear you ask? Well, it's finally time for me to sort out that Guy N Smith zine I have been promising for so long. After that, I'm not too sure. I had planned on producing a second issue of Avalon, but with the cancellation of our Glaston visit for the May Day celebrations, I am going to put that on hold for a year. Reissuing/reworking my Hand in Gove book may be an option as this theme seems to have grown in popularity recently, but I'm not too certain yet. And my fourth Gower book, Tidal Gower, will still probably conclude my publications this year. 

Of course, while all the above is going on, I will be writing my ninth horror novel, Familiar, and ideas for it are already coming thick and fast.

Until my next post, keep happy :)

No! Don't set me off again.

Don't worry lol. There won't be a sequel to this old classic.

Hand i̶n̶ Glove 2?

With so many of these gloves being discarded on the streets during lock-down, I am giving serious thought to producing a sequel to Sweyne's Eye ~ (Hand i̶n̶ Glove)

.

Hand ̶i̶n̶ Glove

Damn. I just found this straggler on my laptop harddrive. I am a bit gutted, tbh, as I quite like this image but it is way too late now to add it to my Sweyne's Eye ~ Hand ̶i̶n̶ Glove zine. Oh well, at least I can still share it here on Pixie-Led.

Hand ̶i̶n̶ Glove Published :)

After a few design and publication issues, which are now happily resolved, I am pleased to report that the first issue of my new photography zine, Sweyne's Eye, is finally available for purchase :) You can order a copy of the first project featured in the inaugural issue here.

I had a fair amount of jip getting this zine to print, to be honest. And I had to scrap my first attempt, even after getting it as far as the printing stage. The main problem with my first attempt was that the 6 x 9 inch portrait format of the book meant that I could only get many of the images printed one to a page. This made the zine a fairly lengthy affair, which pumped up the printing costs of the zine and meant I was unable to make the book available for sale at an acceptable zine price.

Ist (Rejected) Copy of Sweyne's Eye ~ Hand ̶i̶n̶ Glove

Interior Pages of the Rejected 1st Proof of Sweyne's Eye ~ Hand ̶i̶n̶ Glove

Anyway, having received the first proof copy of Sweyne's Eye ~ Hand ̶i̶n̶ Glove, I decided that I would have to bite the bullet, scrap that version of the zine and redesign the product into a more accommodating 8 x 6 inch format publication. As a lot of the photographs in the zine were taken in a portrait format, this allowed me to fit two images onto each page and this helped drastically reduce the page count of the zine. This smaller format, and its resultant reduced cost, also helped identify the publication as a photography zine rather than a high-quality photo-book, something that was always an important factor for me in the production of the work.

Inside pages of Sweyne's Eye ~ Hand ̶i̶n̶ Glove
The 1st Rejected Version (Left) and the Final Published Version (Right)

Having now received a proof copy of this second version of Sweyne's eye, I am more than happy with what I have been able to achieve with the zine. And with my enthusiasm buoyed, I have already started work on the second issue of Sweyne's Eye, which will focus on the photographs I have taken of my local beach. I am proceeding apace with this second issue, so watch this space as I should hopefully get it published sometime over the next couple of weeks, fingers crossed.

In the meantime, here are a few pics of the published first issue Sweyne's Eye ~ Hand ̶i̶n̶ Glove to hopefully whet your appetite for my new zine:

The Published Copy of Sweyne's Eye ~ Hand ̶i̶n̶ Glove

Interior pages of Sweyne's Eye ~ Hand ̶i̶n̶ Glove

Interior pages of Sweyne's Eye ~ Hand ̶i̶n̶ Glove

Hand ̶i̶n̶ Glove ~ First and Last and Never Made It

This is the image that started off my project Hand ̶i̶n̶ Glove. Unfortunately, I was unable to use it in the completed project, as Hand ̶i̶n̶ Glove later fell under the umbrella of my larger, overarching project - my Sweyne's Eye photography zine, which dictates that all the images must have been taken in my home town. This particular image was taken near the Brecon Beacons whilst my family and I were out on a sledging adventure. Still, that's what I like about this blog, images that don't quite make it into print can always find a home here :)

Hand ̶i̶n̶ Glove - Outside the Boundary

Here are a couple of photographs I took for my Hand ̶i̶n̶ Glove project that didn't quite make it into my Sweyne's Eye zine. I am pretty gutted that I could not include them in the publication, but they were taken just outside the geographical boundary that binds all the images in the propounded zine series. Still, you can see them here so all is not lost :)

Sweyne's Eye ~ Hand ̶i̶n̶ Glove: Early Shots

Some early shots from the start of my project photographing abandoned clothing in my home town, before I fine-tuned it to concentrate only on dropped gloves. These and other early shots from the project do appear in Sweyne's Eye ~ Hand ̶i̶n̶ Glove, but only as thumbnail images, but I thought these particular photographs deserved a little more exposure, so here they are for your perusal. I don't know, perhaps shoes hanging from telephone wires deserves a little project of their own...

...and finally, I had to share this picture of one of the more unusual items of lost clothing I found during the project - a jester's cap lol.

Jester's Cap in the Sea

Sweyne's Eye ~ Hand ̶i̶n̶ Glove (7)

Small glove on kerb, taken from my new photography zine Sweyne's Eye ~ Hand ̶i̶n̶ Glove:

Sweyne's Eye ~ Hand ̶i̶n̶ Glove (6)

Another abandoned glove featured in my new photography zine Sweyne's Eye ~ Hand ̶i̶n̶ Glove.

Sweyne's Eye ~ Hand ̶i̶n̶ Glove (5)

From Sweyne's Eye - Hand ̶i̶n̶ Glove. 

Sweyne's Eye ~ Hand ̶i̶n̶ Glove (4)

Another image from the soon to be published published zine Sweyne's Eye ~ Hand ̶i̶n̶ Glove:

Sweyne's Eye ~ Hand ̶i̶n̶ Glove (3)

Here is another of my favourite pics from my new photography zine, Sweyne's Eye ~ Hand ̶i̶n̶ Glove:

Although the images in this book can be read literally as just a series of gloves that had been dropped, left behind and lost by their own, I believe that there is far more to be interpreted from the captured image. They speak of ownership/abandonment, loss, environmental change, of our need as a species to actually get our hands dirty and embrace our place and belonging in the natural world. And, perhaps above all else, I genuinely find the photographs as creepy as bejeesus!

Sweyne's Eye ~ Hand ̶i̶n̶ Glove (2)

The cover image for the first issue of my new photography zine Sweyne's Eye.

Sweyne's Eye ~ Hand ̶i̶n̶ Glove (1)

To celebrate the publication of my first photo-book, Sweyne's Eye ~ Hand  ̶i̶n̶  Glove, I will be sharing some of my images from the new zine here on Pixie-Led. 

Sweyne’s Eye is my new Swansea zine, which is designed to act as a window to my various photographic projects exploring my local neighbourhood.

I have devoted the inaugural issue of this new zine to a series of images I captured back in 2015. That year, encouraged by my recent purchase of an activity tracker (Fitbit) and my involvement in a location-based augmented-reality game (Ingress), I found myself actively pounding the streets of Swansea. as I chased an ever-increasing step-count. During my perambulations, I was shocked at just how much clothing I saw discarded around the city. Curious at the sheer scale of their number and the diversity of the abandoned items, I took to photographing the forsaken clothing, collecting hundreds of images of them throughout the year.

As I continued the photographic project, however, one particular item of clothing began to particularly intrigue me, and I started concentrating my image-making solely on the dropped gloves I happened upon during my walks. The gloves appeared forlorn and disquieting in the landscape and suggested moods and concepts richer than those connoted by the other dishevelled clothing I had photographed.

Sweyne's Eye ~ Hand  ̶i̶n̶  Glove collects for your perusal 60 photographs of deserted, stray and feral gloves, all photographed throughout 2015 in and around the City of Swansea. The zine also includes a few of the early images I took for the series, including shots of trainers hanging from street telephone wires and a jester's hat washed up on Swansea Bay. I hope you enjoy and help support my new project. And I look forward to sharing further images with you in the second issue of this new Swansea zine very soon...

Anyway, here is the first image I would like to share here from the book. Look out for some more over the next few days...

Image taken from the new zine Sweyne's Eye ~ Hand  ̶i̶n̶  Glove

Sweyne's Eye 1...

I started work this morning on the design of my first photobook zine - Sweyne's Eye, the first issue of which will feature a little project entitled: Hand i̶n̶  Glove.

More details soon...