BROWNIE is a magazine about how photography can change our lives. It is a magazine aimed at uncovering the value of photography, and its relevance to everyday life. Like the iconic camera that it is named after, it believes in making photography accessible to everyone by sharing inspirational stories about life through photography.
Volume One discusses about the ‘Human Connections’ behind photography. Through personal stories, conversations with photographers, observations and a photo book, we dive into the connections that bind our hearts, and into the disconnections that keep us safe. We look at how photography takes us behind the curtains of humanity, to see the invisible ties that make our hearts beat.
Volume One details:
21cm x 27.5cm, 180 pages, bilingual (English and Chinese), including a photo-zine (16.2cm x 22.95cm, 24 pages). ISBN 978-7-0558-9 /J.169
Volume One stories:
On Solitude / Alone In The Universe / Insular Landscapes / Through The Looking Glass / Interconnections / The Accident / Nature and Us / Old Mum, New Tricks / The Void / I Will Be Your Follower
Volume One contributors and photographers:
Yining He
Rebecca Toh
Alejandro R. Batista
Lee Chang Ming
Tereza Červeňová
Gabriel Gauffre
Svala Ragnars
Paul Chu
Chaoyu Li
Ting Cheng
Featured stories:
We talked to Rebecca Toh about whether loneliness can be a beautiful thing through her photo series Alone In The Universe. Every shot showed a lonely figure finding a moment of peace in the crowded city, almost like a scene from a Wong Kar Wai movie.
Alejandro R. Batista expresses what it means to grow up cut off from the rest of the world on the Canary Islands through his photo series Insular Landscapes. While disconnected from the rest of the world, they form a closer connection to their own geography and landscape, where the sea is always a reference point.
In “Interconnections”, we caught up with Tereza Červeňová about her photography work, which touches upon the idea that our identities are shaped by the people around us and also by spaces and memories. The cover of our magazine is Tereza’s younger brother Adam, whom she continuously photographs over the years as a way of seeing herself in him by watching him grow.
We discuss with Icelandic photographer Svala Ragnars in “Nature and Us”, whose work questions and provokes our relationship with Mother Nature through her photo series of hydroelectric energy plants in Iceland, the Orka project.
In “Old Mum, New Tricks”, Paul Chu identifies a new mother-daughter dynamic with the rise of Instagram and how mothers have become the perfect photographer for their daughters as a way for them to show their love.
Ting Cheng finds new and playful ways to show affection towards plants, which is something important for her whenever she settles down in a new place. Having plants makes her feel responsible, as she has to ensure that they both grow healthily together in the new place. We worked with her to create a photo zine inside the magazine, calledI Am Your Follower.