A Year Amongst Trees by Brad Carr | My Photo Bookshelf

Photobook
Written By Trevor Sherwin

Towards the back end of 2022, I was listening to a Biblioscapes episode featuring Brad Carr as he talked about his photobook featuring woodland photos he took over the course of a year back in 2021. He spoke about the project and his love for the woodland with so much genuine enthusiasm, I immediately went online and added his book to my collection.

Author’s Synopsis

This zine contains a collection of photographs from my 2021 portfolio and tells the story of a year which changed me as a photographer and human. Featuring a series of short stories, a poem that I felt inspired to write whilst out in nature, a little insight into why I create and where my love of the woodland was born.

There are stories to be told everywhere out there in nature. I hope that this zine inspires you to get out there and tell your own.

My thoughts about the book

When I picked this zine up for the first time, my initial impression was how good the soft touch cover felt in the hand. It has a luxurious feel to it, which adds so much to the overall reading experience. The book has a nicely written introduction, with childhood memories and a touching encounter Brad had with his Nan, which inspired much of his photography in 2021.

The book is jam-packed with beautiful woodland photography, and if you’ve followed me for any length of time, you will know that woodland photography is a subject I also have a strong connection with, making the overall reading experience even more special. The photos are overflowing with atmosphere and whether taken in warm, late summer light or on a cold, misty morning, Brad was able to capture that mood in his photos and unleash it via this book for us all to experience.

Alongside some of the photos, Brad included some stories which feature his thoughts about a particular photo or encounters he had while out in the field. There is a raw honesty and vulnerability in these stories and when I finished reading a page, I would find myself pausing, just to let the words sink in before moving on to the next page. This is a testament to how strong of a writer Brad is.

Overall, the book’s layout works well. The images were well-sequenced and flowed nicely with a good text-to-picture ratio. My only (very small and subjective) niggles were twofold. The first, and one I’ve mentioned before is when a picture spans more than one page. I can understand why it’s done, but for photography books, where the image is the main visual element, I find it very distracting. I also found having the paragraphs of text centre justified a little distracting. It may just be me, but it is harder to read, and I feel paragraphs of text should be left-justified. As I said, these are tiny issues.

Photography zines are typically less expensive and with it, carry lower expectations than a larger, more expensive coffee table book, but I think for projects like this and other smaller bodies of work, they are a fantastic way to get your work in the hands of others and should never be considered inferior. In a world where self-publishing has never been so accessible, I would love to see more landscape photographers use the zine format to help get their work printed and out in the world. Maybe I need to start taking my own advice.

Brad has a blog article to accompany his book here. He also has a YouTube channel centred around creativity, photography and nature.

This little book packs a big punch, oozing creativity from both the photos and the written word. If you can, do buy this gem of a woodland photography book.

Book Details

Trevor Sherwin
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