A hand made photobook: I'll Come Over To Yours

A book about doing things rather than having things

A book about taking life as it is. Doing things rather than having things. Being with friends and being excited about the ordinary and the routine and making it memorable.

I always loved travelling and staying at someone else’s place — especially back in the ’80s. And I loved it when people came to stay at mine. We did it all the time. Mostly arranged by letter or via phoneboxes.

It’s not nostalgia, it’s a report from the past. A documentary on how me and my friends were back then. Getting on with stuff.

We were in our first jobs. We had virtually nothing. No one owned much — everything fit into one sparse room. But everyone had music, and something to play it on. That’s where the money went. Music. Cameras. A TV. Maybe the odd can of beer – but never on food.

Nothing really mattered other than connecting up. Being there face to face. Learning and understanding. Being late was OK. Public transport.

Everything felt interesting. You could absorb it all because there was so little of it. No clutter, no excess. It was lo-fi and basic. Charity shop finds. Homemade. DIY. Things found in the street, scrounged and shared. Simple, experimental, hand-to-mouth. Scruffy, but never bleak.

It was the little things. Cherished. Kept. There was time to focus. It couldn’t be wasted. There was nothing to waste it on.

Always bus stops and train stations. Walking everywhere. Sleeping on floors. Eating on floors. Down the pub. Kitchens. Lounging. Posing. No one had a car. All weathers, all seasons. And always time for a self-portrait, or a photo booth session.

Hand made, stab bound photobook. Edition of 20. Images digitised from 35mm negatives hand-processed between 1982 and 1985.

Copies available here.

To learn how I make photobooks like these, my free to download and use tutorial guide is here.