Q&A: Roberto Johnson & Bringing His Vision To Life Through 'A Sense of Place' Zine
Fascinated by the ways place and identity interact with each other — writer and photographer Roberto Johnson explores the world around him through essays, poems, and photographs in his first zine, A Sense of Place, released Nov. 19. Johnson is the creator of the music blog Riffs & Rhymes, and periodically posts other articles about other topics such as reading and filmography on his website. This zine is his first published collection of work, consisting of “poems, adapted field notes, and film archives accumulated between spring 2020 and early summer 2021. It's very much an ode to romantic travelers, a love letter to landscapes and open spaces, as well as a scrapbook of inspiration from a year filled with great uncertainty,” he says.
The film photos and writing excerpts in A Sense of Place are both vital; as Johnson puts it, “one couldn’t exist without the other.” The connection between the writing and photographs is the main reason he chose the zine format for this collection. Each place written about and photographed in the zine is incredibly important, as well as the overall theme of searching for meaning through travel.
Read below to learn more about Roberto Johnson and the process of creating A Sense of Place.
LUNA: First of all, your zine just came out, congratulations! How does it feel having just released A Sense of Place into the world?
JOHNSON: Thank you! It feels pretty exciting. I’ve had the zines with me physically for a few weeks, so I’ve been waiting to send them out to people, but it feels good. This project was a long time in the making and took several months of doing the layout and seeing all those details through on the back end, but you know, this is why you make stuff and it feels good to have that be fully realized.
LUNA: How long have you been writing and taking photographs? What’s the story behind that?
JOHNSON: Writing has always been a huge hobby of mine. Pretty much for as long as I can remember, I’ve had an obsession with language and how you can use it to shape people's perspective on things, so I’ve been writing for a long time across different mediums. I wrote for a school newspaper in college and for a while have been writing about music on my own blog, so that’s always been in my creative repertoire. Taking photos is a little newer to me. I started getting more into that over the past few years with my last full time job. Social media was a huge part of it, so naturally I just became more inclined to taking photos, whether it was on my phone or starting to tinker with a camera. As far as the photos in this project, that was really the product of falling in love with film photography over the past year or so. I bought a little point and shoot camera, I think it was last January, from an online thrift store and just started shooting with that. I was totally enamored with the imperfections of film and just the magic of that, and I ended up coming across a couple old beat up 35 mm cameras in my parents’ closet. I spent the whole year using those and shooting as much as I could. It's something that I’m still totally obsessed with and am always looking to get better at.
LUNA: Do you exclusively shoot film photography?
JOHNSON: I would say most, if not all, of what I shoot right now is film, aside from just snapping a few pics on my phone here and there. I appreciate digital photography and the mechanics of that, but my relationship with film has just been this ongoing obsession that continues to grow in different kinds of ways. I already mentioned it, but what draws me to it so much are the imperfections of it, and how film is able to capture certain moments or certain details in a way that digital isn’t. I think a lot of people would say that, but that’s what keeps me hooked. I love trying out new film stocks, but I definitely have a few that I keep going back to and want to keep exploring.
LUNA: In your newsletter, I noticed that you said, “what I do know is that the writing is an extension of the photography and vice versa. One couldn’t exist without the other.” Can you elaborate on this, the way that your photography and writing are connected?
JOHNSON: That was specifically in relation to this zine. When I got the idea that I wanted to make this project, I had accumulated a decent chunk of photos that I wanted to do something with other than just posting them on Instagram. That’s where the idea came from in terms of pairing those and writing, because I always knew writing was gonna be a part of it. I was doing a lot of personal journaling last year and started writing about the trips I was going on, and I always brought my camera with me everywhere I went. Those two inevitably became married and they’re kind of inseparable. A lot of the writing coincides directly with a lot of the trips and travels that the photos document, so they’re joined at the hip in that way. I guess in a spiritual sense, or figuratively, both the photos in the zine and the writing excerpts in there carry the same spirit of searching for meaning and just having a love for nature, so there’s a lot of parallels between them for me. When I’m practicing both of those mediums, shooting photos or writing, I’m in a similar headspace no matter which one I’m doing.
LUNA: What made you decide to use the zine format for your first collection?
JOHNSON: That’s something I thought about a lot because I had the idea for quite awhile, and at first I was thinking “should I write a book?” but that didn’t feel necessarily right. I was like, “I don’t know if I have that much to say,” and I knew I wanted to utilize photography in some capacity. So I think just noodling around online, doing some research, and consuming media like I normally did, I fell in love with the zine format. There are a lot of cool indie music zines and DIY art zines that I came across in the past year or two that really made an impression on me. I just thought the medium was so cool and I guess as time went by it hit me that it was obviously the perfect fit. It was something that was gonna allow me to utilize those photos and be able to present them visually in the way I wanted to, while also including writing excerpts. The cool thing about zines is that there’s no rulebook; there’s no black and white definition of what they have to be, how they have to look. It’s pretty much freeform and anything goes. There’s a lot of things that drew me to it but I think the freedom within that medium specifically [stood out], plus it’s just a cool little digestible way to present art. It’s fun to distribute them around, like a little pocketbook, and it’s something you can easily keep on a bookshelf too so I think just generally people dig it.
LUNA: What were some inspirations behind A Sense of Place?
JOHNSON: Music always plays a huge role in the way I’m seeing the world on a day to day basis and how I’m interpreting things. That can be extended to art in general but there are definitely some major inspirations for this project in a musical sense. This past year, I've really been drawn to more ambient and instrumental music. Part of it is probably a reaction to the hectic attitude around the early pandemic and the noise on social media, but there's something about the space in instrumental recordings that really resonates with me and how I think about my work. It can be bold and evocative, while also being simple and elemental. I find a lot of the music I gravitate to feels attuned to the patterns of nature, which is something I really identify with and strive to do in my own writing. [Additionally] I’m always trying to dive into different things; for the last few years I’ve had my own music blog where I’ve written about new albums and interviewed a lot of artists. In terms of music, that’s been a big inspiration, just seeing artists in the indie sphere that really take on a lot of the burden themselves of releasing their own music, promoting it and doing it the DIY way. It’s just so inspiring to me to see musicians in that world pursuing their own vision and doing whatever it takes to create their art, but also sharing it with everyone. I think it’s really brave. It’s more just that ideology that’s been a big inspiration to me, chasing the idea of a project and sharing your art with others. So that spirit is probably what’s inspired me the most.
Another thing that definitely helped spark the drive to see this project through is last year when I was in between jobs, I suddenly had a lot of free time —much of which was dedicated to writing and exploring photography— but I also started reading a lot more. I’ve always enjoyed reading but it was something I had kind of fallen out of in terms of doing frequently, and last year I just started consuming a lot more books and seeking out certain authors that I had been interested in but never properly plunged into. A few of those are pretty obvious culprits, your Kerouacs and Patti Smiths and people like that. Figures like that and books like that were definitely a huge inspiration. There was actually a moment last year, and I don’t want to say this was the moment of inception, but I remember reading Patti Smith’s Year of the Monkey and something just hit me within the first few chapters where I just started laughing because I knew…the book was so inspiring and resonated with me so deeply that I knew I needed and wanted to make something. Obviously there’s a lot of things that people romanticize about artists like Patti Smith and Jack Kerouac and writers on the run, like that vagabondish lifestyle. It’s very easy to romanticize but I think furthermore what those authors and books instilled in me is the will to write and the desire to create. There’s a lot of books that were inspirational in that sense.
LUNA: Where was your favorite place to work on this project, and how is your writing affected by the place you’re in?
JOHNSON: That’s a good question. I knocked out the bulk of this project in a few different places; I was living in San Diego at my parents’ house for most of last year and that’s where I started to piece things together. A lot of the initial writing excerpts and anything that came from my personal journal happened there, but there were a few other times where I made space to dedicate time to really working on this and seeing it through. I took a solo trip to Joshua Tree at the very beginning of this year, I think it was in early January. I had set that time aside, I was like, “I’m gonna go there, I’m gonna work on this project and actually start to put things together,” and that was where it all started to take shape. Plus, it was a little trip to do for myself, get away to the desert and do some writing. I stayed in the Gram Parsons room in the Joshua Tree Inn, which has always been a bucket list item for me so it was cool to do that and get away from everything. I logged out of all my social media for a few days and kind of just went to town. I tried not to have any expectations in terms of how much I was going to write or what I was gonna write, and I just let my pen and mind flow freely. Everything I wrote there ended up making it into the zine; I think there were three pieces that wound up in there. After that I moved to Santa Barbara, earlier this year in the spring. In the late spring and early summer here I spent time formatting the zine and trying to turn it into something cohesive; there were a few pieces that needed polishing up and film archives [to sort through] to decide what photos were gonna wind up in there. A lot of that took place here. I try to write as frequently as possible, whether it’s just jotting stuff down in my journal everyday or actually working on a bigger project. Place definitely has a lot to do with it, and I definitely am a fan of the remote writing lifestyle. Remote doesn’t have to mean being somewhere super far away from people and civilization. For me that can just be locking myself in a room and making sure I’m in a good headspace, and that I’m present and know where I’m going with my writing. I think creativity is always connected to the place we’re in, both physically and in a spiritual sense.
LUNA: What are some other interests you have besides writing, reading and photography? What are some things that bring you joy?
JOHNSON: This is kind of an extension of that, but just travel in general. I feel like that is a big focal point of where I’m at right now in life, just constantly being on the move. I don’t want that to sound like I’m always just running around, but I think being receptive to new people and new experiences, and going to new places is a means of expanding perspective. Travel can look a lot different at times; obviously last year it looked really different. But outside of that, I really just try to spend as much time outside as possible. My last full time job was in a pretty prototypical office setting. I did that for a few years out of college and it was a great work experience but since covid hit, I think, like a lot of people, it made me pause and reflect. Being outdoors in nature is definitely something that’s a huge priority to me so I would call that a big passion of mine too.
LUNA: Can you tell us a bit more about your newsletter?
JOHNSON: The newsletter was created primarily to be an extension of the zine and to create a space to provide context on what exactly the zine is. I thought it would be helpful not only for people who are interested in the zine, but also for myself just to have that space to muse on the making of it and some of the stories and art featured in the project. I pretty much created [the newsletter] with that in mind. It’s something I’m planning on continuing to do, probably not on a super high frequency basis, but I do like having that space and I’ve always wanted to make a newsletter. This whole Substack craze in the past couple years I think is really cool, but I always wanted to make sure I had a good reason to do it…It’ll just be good to have that space to continue talking about [the zine] and hopefully connect with people in that regard.
LUNA: Do you have a favorite part of this collection?
JOHNSON: I think I have a unique relationship with each section of the zine and each place it dives into. The way it’s broken up is geographically; each section has a certain grouping of photos from a certain place and writing that is either from there or that I thought would be a good fit to pair with it. There are a couple that definitely stand out. The “Joshua Tree” one stands out for a few reasons, just because I view the trip I took out there as special, and it was just a really fun trip for me to take on my own. I feel like the writing I did out there set the table for the direction of the zine. Even though some of the stuff was already written and I had already taken a lot of the photos, I felt that it just gave me a really good direction in terms of where I wanted to go with the project. So that’s an essay I’ve read over fairly often and I’m proud of it, not just for it being in the zine but I just feel a special connection with it. Joshua Tree has been a favorite destination of mine, especially these past few years so I’d definitely say that one holds a special place in my heart.
LUNA: What are your upcoming plans? Is there anything else you want to add?
JOHNSON: I’m just filled with so much gratitude for everyone who’s taken the time to check this project out. It's a huge milestone for me in the sense that I have really wanted to make something and share it with people, and I’m just very appreciative of everyone who’s supported this vision or had a hand in making it or inspiring it. I definitely have to give a shout-out to Sophie Sachar, who was the graphic designer for this project. She did an awesome job. She was instrumental to realizing it, especially in a visual sense; she did the cover and helped format the layout and had some really great ideas on that front. Overall I’m just really thankful and feel really inspired. A lot of this project has been in my mind for well over a year at this point, so it feels good to see it through and see it done. I definitely want to continue to workshop it and share it with people and spread the word as much as I can. I’m also looking forward to working on the next project, whatever that may be. This has just made me more hungry to keep creating and see where that road takes me.
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