FACING IT

Photos by Ted Pushinsky.

There she goes again. The woman in all black. I would see her everywhere, walking to the bus stop I assumed. A day or a month goes by, I see her again. Long straight gray white hair. 5 foot tall. Always black dress, black coat, black bag, black everything. Always by herself. Year after year I still see her and I still wonder about her.

One day at one of Ted’s photo show openings, I see him talking to a woman. They know each other well. Wait, it’s her! “Who is she, Ted?”, “She was my photo teacher.”

I don’t think I met her that night but eventually I did meet her and she is a very nice humble lady. I saw her last weekend at the memorial for Ted. She had a bag with her filled with books and zines by Ted. She shared them with people to check out. Some of those were ones that we published and one of those books was titled, “Facing It.”

She pulled it out and we chatted about how maybe we can do another publishing of this book. Or that someone should republish it. I flipped through it and I could see why. I was embarrassed. It was xeroxed and kind of falling apart. We had just gotten our glue bind machine and were still experimenting with sizes, page count, and different glues. Some glues dry soft so the bind opens more, some dry hard. Looks like she got one of the hard glue ones. This book was 120 pages and approx 5″ x 7″, published in 2013.

Earlier that day Troy Holden had mentioned his copy of that book falling apart too. But mostly because he had studied it so much.

When I held this woman’s copy, I had forgotten that every photo was a 2 page spread. Naturally you want your photos to fill the entire page and Ted shot mostly horizontal. You’ll notice most of his books are horizontal books with the binding on the left shorter side. Which is totally fine if you are a legit print shop and have the right equipment to do it. We didn’t. This is why the zines we printed with Ted are calendar style, staples on top, flipping the page up to see the next page. And this is why we made “Facing It” all 2 page spreads. The problem with 2 page spreads is that the middle of the photos gets lost a little in what they call “the gutter” which is where the page meets the glue meets the binding. It’s especially noticeable with smaller books. But once Ted’s mind is made up, then that is what is happening.

We were all fine with it at the time and it’s always fun working with Ted and we edited the photos to compensate for the gutter, but seeing this woman’s copy made me want to re-visit these images properly. So these photos here are some highlights.

After discussing the book I asked her if she really was Ted’s photo teacher. She said, “I was his photo teacher’s photo teacher.”

See more of Ted’s photos at his website : http://tedpushinsky.com

4 responses to “FACING IT”

  1. tom Avatar

    It would be so rad if you guys re-released this. I think a lot of people would want one. I know I would snag one up so fast. Could look at these photos all day.

  2. Reuben Radding Avatar

    Great to see the work, and cool to hear the background.

  3. rzz Avatar
    rzz

    thanks man!

  4. rzz Avatar
    rzz

    yep, me too!