Hodomania by Benjamin Simpson

When I started to pull together my photographs from wandering the streets of Los Angeles into a series called ‘Abstract Los Angeles’ my first thought was to make a book.
In the process I made a huge number of small test prints, and spread them over the table to decide what was suitable for a book, and what order to put them in.
Betsy, while moving the prints around on the table, threw out the idea that they might look better just as they are.
Not in a book, but as a collection of malleable prints, changeable, open to interpretation by the viewer.
It changed from a passive book, to an interactive process, for each observer to find their own order, their own collections.

I liked the way this worked, and set out to find a box to hold them. I found lots, but none of them really reflected what was inside.
So I decided to build my own.
After a few false starts, there was finally an aluminum box in my hands that I was happy with.

Start with a sheet of aluminum:

Cut it to size:

Then comes the patience, as the edges are all filed and sanded to make them smooth and even.
After this, gently bend up the edges, to make the sides of the boxes.

And then there is the finished product:

Each box includes 20 5×7 prints, and cost $35, ($10 postage) please contact me for more info: ben at hodomania dot com