I got into bookbinding a few months ago when I discovered 'fanbinding'—which is when fans of a particular media bind together fanfictions (fan made stories) of that media into a book. I thought this was the coolest thing ever, especially since the fandom community is on that I hold very dear. I have spent a lot of time interacting with the numerous fandom communities online, making friends, making art. So finding a way to turn my favorite stories into physical books was a game changer for me. I now spend a huge amount of my free time making these books from scratch.
The images you see below are some of the steps it takes to make a book at home: including extensive planning and designing, emotional turmoil, textblock creation, and cover design. making a book is a lengthy process and I did not photograph the whole thing as it can be a very fiddly process that requires a lot of up-close photography that I wasn't able to shoot until later in the narrative when I got a second, smaller tripod. As a result, only portions of the whole process were captured, but the images I did get encapsulated a lot of the emotional impact and strain of making one of these books has on me. They can be very, very fun to create but also very frustrating. Measurements have to be precise and the process can't be rushed. Its a beautiful process and I hope to continue doing it for as long as I can