The photo zine exploring the strange rivalry between Melbourne and Perth

Lloyd Stubber is a photographer from Perth living in Melbourne. His work – all the oddities of life on the road caught in hazy analogue brushstrokes – was recently featured in the Grown Man Business zine and exhibition at Monday Week gallery and he’s just launched a DIY new publishing house called Bloom.

Division of Vision is the first title from Bloom – and Lloyd’s fifth self-published title in total – and the duotone publication kicks off the first of the ‘Old Mates’ series, where each title will feature work from two longtime photographer companions.

Made up of images from Lloyd Stubber and Jay Dymock, the title follows the artists’ view on each of their current residing cities – Melbourne and Perth – where, despite the 3000 kilometres between them and a latent rivalry, things don’t always seem to be that different.

We caught up with Lloyd to find out more.

When and why did you start making zines?
The first zine I ever put together was back in 2009 called Generation Y. Flicking through it now is always a lot of fun, such good memories printed on such bad paper, haha. When I started taking photos back in high school I was obsessed with printing my own images. After a few years they decided to tear down the darkroom, stopped teaching film altogether and switched to digital. I ended up sticking with film and started getting my photographs printed at a small lab. But I didn’t really do much else with the photographs other than put them on the web. Until one day I picked up a copy of Conor O’Brien’s There Stands the Glass. Just the simplicity and effectiveness of this little publication made me pretty much drop everything and focus on creating something similar with my own images. Although it’s nowhere near as elegant it’s still got some of my favourite photographs in it. That feeling of holding my first zine in my hands is why I still do it today.

What do you like about the medium?
Everything! There’s just so many ways to go about printing something. Printing a photo brings it to life, no matter how you go about it.

What’s Division of Vision all about?
Division of Vision is the first of the series called ‘Old Mates’, where each title is made up of images from two long-time photographer companions. As it was the first zine I was going to publish under Bloom I wanted it to be close to home. So I chose one of my oldest friends, Jay Dymock. The zine is somewhat of a conversation between us, looking into our lives in each of the cities we live in. Jay and I have always wanted to collaborate. He just has this spark, and great photo opportunities seem to happen around him. Generation Y was almost entirely photographs of him being a wild man. But soon after I put the first title together I moved from Perth to Melbourne and have been here ever since. We haven’t grown apart since I left, I guess we haven’t even grown up, haha.

When were the photos shot and how did you decide to present them together in this way?
Our images weere taken over the last two years in each of our residing cities. I just thought it would be interesting to make the split-zine into an Australian version of East vs. West/Bloods vs. Crips. To kind of to play on the rivalry Perth and Melbourne pretend not to have.

What do you do for a living and how does zinemaking fit into your life?
At the moment I work part-time at an aquarium in Melbourne. It’s definitely been the most interesting way to pay my bills so far. The rest of the time I do freelance photography and with as much leftover time as possible I work on print projects. To be honest I never thought I would be doing this years on. Back when I started taking pictures I thought of exhibitions as the platform I’d be most interested in. Now print is all I think about. Over the years I’ve launched and exhibited four self-published zines of solely my work – my previous title being Zeal – and one as part of a group show I curated for Melbourne’s International Photography Festival 2012. I’m just happy now that I’ve started my own publishing house I can finally start printing other artists I admire as well.

Have you swapped Division of Vision for any other good zines?
I’ve just recently spoken to Paul at Editions Ltd. and have organised to swap DOV for a copy of his latest title Stay Young Issue 4. Can’t wait to see it!

What are your favourite zines?
My favourites at the moment would have to be Look. Ed!, Ed Van Der Elsken by Idea Books; I Don’t Warna Grow Up, Sean Vegezzi by Fourteen-Nineteen; Maximum Respect, Tim Head by Smalltime Books; Something from Nothing, Ben Clement (self-published) and Compliments from a Stranger, Grant Hatfeild by Deadbeat Club.

Head over to the Bloom Publishing website to keep up to date on rad new projects. You can check out Lloyd’s personal work on his website.

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