The Cusp of July

handmade photobook

“The Cusp of July” is a photobook with my writing and photography stitched together.

It takes place over 5 summers of my life, from 2016 to 2020. The photos are of my friends and surroundings alongside a written stream of consciousness exploring nostalgia, melancholy and longing in the summer months.

The cover photograph represents freedom whilst also reflecting the yearning for past summers with the review mirror as the focal point of the image. I began working on this project when I was off sick last year and started combing through the archives of my teenage and young adult photography and journals.

The photos show the freedom and coming together we experienced in the summers between school and university years. The long and motionless summers before we ended up getting jobs and everything changed. There were summers of teenage angst and heartache or feeling so in love everything around you looked beautiful enough to capture. We were always immersed in live music and dancing, but there were also moments in our bedrooms or parks smoking/drinking alone while fantasising about the future and the people we thought we’d become.

It is 150mm x 100mm x 104pp landscape, side-bound loosely with twine. The blue hardback fabric cover is handmade with a cut out for the cover photograph to peek through.