cigarette, knife, thumb

I chose a worn, leathery paper for the cover material and black, waxed thread to emphasize appearance of a hand-made, travel journal. Each page displays a background image of a map to also connote journey.

For the cigarette layout, I photographed a friend holding a rolled cigarette. Since a nomad is typically cautious with money, I thought this type of cigarette would give the appropriate connotations. Also, one of the cigarettes is screaming, "rebel"; the traveler is rebellious to the structure and normalcy of society.

For this layout, I recruited Rainbow holding the knife that she typically carries on her belt strap. The woods scene is to propose a hiking/camping theme, allowing the knife to represent more function than fear. I also added journal text about camping and hiking.

This is the first page, the thumb layout. The connotation of hitchhiking leads to the connotation of adventure; I decided to enlarge the text for "Adventure" to establish a theme. This layout consists of thumb shots of my friend, the map background, a complete scene of Rainbow hitchhiking on Main st., as well as a travel journal excerpt about hitchhiking. The journal text is cropped in order to redirect the attention to a general theme of traveling, rather than a concrete story of Rainbow's life.

The process of gathering visual evidence has allowed me to learn more about a friend. (What could be better?) Her stories are enamoring. I am also becoming more and more tempted to pursue even a short experience of this lifestyle.