MEDITATIONS of the MUNDANE

An Upcoming Coffee Table Book By James Walters

What if the objects we pass by every day have thoughts, hopes, dreams, opinions, and even a back story?

This all began seven years ago with a walk around my hometown.  I love walking around in cities because there are so many details that you wouldn’t notice if riding a bike or in a car.

On one of those walks a hair tie caught my attention. It was the kind of object I had walked past hundreds of times before with no notice.  There was nothing special about it, except that it was missing the person it once belonged to.

That got me wondering about its story.  Who did it once belong to, how long were they together, and what events led to them being separated?

As a photographer for the past 3 decades, I know that people love a good story whether in the form of words or pictures.  Also, I often think about how easy it can be for photos to objectify people.  Not in any sort of malicious way, but sometimes a client wants to sell their jeans or towels, or kitchen cabinets and the shot just looks better if we include a person to make the the product seem more relatable

When we look at those kinds of advertising images, it’s not the person or their story we’re interested in, which basically the model a human prop.

I wondered what it would be like to flip the script and personify objects. To get curious about their back story, their hopes, dreams and opinions on the world around them.

And, instead of featuring exciting objects that would easily draw attention, what if I focused only on objects that are so much a part of the background that they are barely noticed by passers by?

Once I fell into this rabbit hole, Meditations of the Mundane felt like the ultimate scavenger hunt.

This is my second project on Kickstarter.  The first was a memoir published a little over a decade ago.

This current project is 80% complete, and is designed as a 12X9 hard cover coffee table book.  Each of the 90 Black and white images has its own story that explores the life of the object in the image. The layout of the book mostly consists of a single image on one side of the spread, with its story on the facing page.

The layout is complete and currently out for a final round of proof reading while I finalize paper samples and cover options with the printer.

After printing a proof copy recently, I decided to make several changes to elevate the look.  One example is the decision to drop the dust jacket in favor of an image wrapped cover.  My ultimate dream would be to add a fabric slip cover with white foil stamping.  Because, that would look amazing, and ya gotta have stretch goals!

The proof reading and corrections stage will be complete by the end of this campaign, so, if funded, the file will be off to the printer and books should begin shipping to backers within eight weeks.

Thank you for your interest in this project, and I hope to be writing you a personal thank you note this fall.