Weekly E-book: Chance

An image from Stuart Murdoch's Chance. Licensed CC-BY-NC-ND.
An image from Stuart Murdoch’s Chance.
Licensed CC-BY-NC-ND.

This week we come back to photography. Stuart Murdoch has been tearing up photography in New South Wales for quite some years. The founder of altfotonet.org, a cyber-based, e-zine and gallery, published in Melbourne, Australia, he continues on numerous projects simultaneously, from his low-rez photodiary to his curatorial work at Refraction Photos.

As he writes about himself, “I describe myself as an artist/picture maker/educator, I like long walks in incongruous places, and spending quality time with my iPhone and other camera gear. I also enjoy locking myself away in my darkroom, splashing around with chemicals, making negatives and prints.”

Many of Mr. Murdoch’s photobooks are freely available with a Creative Commons license at one of his old, archived blogs. We thought we’d unlock the vaults and give you an EPUB version of his 2010 PDF photobook, Chance.

Made for Solo Photo Book Month, Chance explores the idea that the best camera is the one you have with you–in this case, a cell phone camera. It’s a less measured work than his other books. He describes it as a “jazz infused free form narrative,” which is accurate enough–and exactly its appeal. In sharp contrast to his highly intellectual, New Topographics-influenced work in both silver gelatin and digital, Chance is all about spontaneous seeing: clearly, swiftly, conversationally.

Creative Commons License
Except where otherwise noted, the content on this site is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.