Codex Maleficarum - handmade book

I hadn't mentioned it here, but I spent some time working on a new handmade book.  Completely unrelated to my Alchemical book series, this is called Codex Maleficarum, a work regarding witches and witchcraft.  The title is a reference to earlier books on the subject, including Malleus Maleficarum (from the 15th century) and Compendium Maleficarum (from the 17th).  Continuing in this tradition, I've treated the material similarly by compiling information from other sources and editing it to fit my own beliefs and biases.

The book is 96 pages and hardbound (approximately 11x11 inches).  It includes quite a few original photographs from my series "Earth Magic" (most of which I've not shown publicly yet), along with text and images collected from numerous sources. 

Please forgive the varying quality of these snapshots.

family and cameras

It's easy for photographers to get carried away talking about gear.  I've done it, despite all efforts not to.  Some people seem to like talking about their camera more than they like using it.  Having said that, I'm about to write about cameras here.

This was my Christmas gift from my parents.  It's a Hasselblad, a camera I never thought I'd own.  More importantly, it was my mom's. 

I've written before about how my mother was a professional photographer, and how I used to use her darkroom when I was a teenager.  There is a bit of camera gifting history in my family.  My mom got her first camera from her grandfather.  My parents gave me my first camera for Christmas when I was six years old.  Since then, at least five of the cameras I've owned have come through my parents, generally being passed down from my mom.  The rest of them were stolen in 2006 when someone broke into my apartment, a month after I moved to Chicago.

This particular camera was originally a gift from my dad to my mom.  Now it's mine.  I feel honored.  I can't wait to use it.

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I may not be posting a lot of new images here, but that doesn't mean that I'm not busy.  I've finished quite a few things recently.  It's just not time to share them yet.