Photography and Bookbinding: A Quiet Connection

Over the past few weeks, I’ve immersed myself in an online course called Seeing Through Photographs (Coursera_MoMA), and it has deepened my relationship with images in ways I hadn’t anticipated. Photography has always intrigued me, even though I’m no expert. As the course suggests, “Photography has become fully integrated into daily life”, a truth I’ve come to understand more profoundly with each lesson.

As a bookbinder, images are my silent guides. Before a single stitch is made or a cover pressed into place, I rely on a mental snapshot—a fleeting vision of the finished book, an idea that feels almost tangible. This internal image isn’t a strict blueprint, but rather a quiet compass, setting the direction without dictating the journey. In this sense, bookbinding is not just a physical craft; it’s a practice of the mind, a dance between vision and technique.

In the spaces between technique and intention, there exists a delicate emptiness—a space where the unspoken takes shape. It’s here that photographic impressions often surface: not actual photographs, but the whispers of them—textures, compositions, shadows—that hint at the aesthetic yet to come. Photography and bookbinding meet in this stillness, in the gap between the literal and the imagined, where each image becomes a silent collaborator in the act of creation.

I spend long moments simply observing the object before me—a book or album—waiting for it to connect. There’s a quiet intimacy in that stillness, a moment when the visual narrative begins to emerge, slowly assembling the scattered pieces into something greater.

We also restore and craft old photo albums, and in those moments, the connection feels almost organic, visceral. There’s a magic in working with these forgotten fragments of time, with stories that predate my own existence. The architecture of each album speaks to me, its very form opening a dialogue across generations, allowing me to meet people and places long gone.

“Photography has the power to illuminate personal narratives, and many people sequence photographs in albums or scrapbooks to recollect events and places they hold dear. These albums, as well as snapshots by amateur photographers, have become an essential and rich part of the medium’s history…”

Additional text from Seeing Through Photographs online course, Coursera