snafu

Photographic work from SNAFU — sixty-six handmade books & a field guide by Theo Anderson, evolving through time and form.
From SNAFU — sixty-six handmade books & a field guide by Theo Anderson, a living archive in time and form.
Theo Anderson — photographic work from SNAFU, sixty-six handmade books & a field guide exploring the everyday.
Photographic work from SNAFU — sixty-six handmade books & a field guide by Theo Anderson, unfolding through time.
Image from SNAFU — sixty-six handmade books & a field guide by Theo Anderson, a visual poem of American life.

Daybreak, a thousand miles from nowhere.

From SNAFU — sixty-six handmade books & a field guide by Theo Anderson, documenting the ordinary and the absurd.
Theo Anderson — image from SNAFU, sixty-six handmade books & a field guide tracing imperfection and persistence.
Photographic work from SNAFU, sixty-six handmade books & a field guide by Theo Anderson, a meditation in time and form.
Photographic work from SNAFU — sixty-six handmade books & a field guide by Theo Anderson, evolving through time and form.
From SNAFU — sixty-six handmade books & a field guide by Theo Anderson, a living archive in time and form.

I find myself awake, along the cracked asphalt of life.

Theo Anderson — photographic work from SNAFU, sixty-six handmade books & a field guide exploring the everyday.
Photographic work from SNAFU — sixty-six handmade books & a field guide by Theo Anderson, unfolding through time.
Image from SNAFU — sixty-six handmade books & a field guide by Theo Anderson, a visual poem of American life.
From SNAFU — sixty-six handmade books & a field guide by Theo Anderson, documenting the ordinary and the absurd.
Theo Anderson — image from SNAFU, sixty-six handmade books & a field guide tracing imperfection and persistence.

Happenstance, chance, godsend; whatever you want to call it, is how I get to a place.

Photographic work from SNAFU, sixty-six handmade books & a field guide by Theo Anderson, a meditation in time and form.
Photographic work from SNAFU — sixty-six handmade books & a field guide by Theo Anderson, evolving through time and form.
From SNAFU — sixty-six handmade books & a field guide by Theo Anderson, a living archive in time and form.
Theo Anderson — photographic work from SNAFU, sixty-six handmade books & a field guide exploring the everyday.
Photographic work from SNAFU — sixty-six handmade books & a field guide by Theo Anderson, unfolding through time.

Birth and death are real, what happens in the middle is anybody’s guess.

Image from SNAFU — sixty-six handmade books & a field guide by Theo Anderson, a visual poem of American life.
From SNAFU — sixty-six handmade books & a field guide by Theo Anderson, documenting the ordinary and the absurd.
Theo Anderson — image from SNAFU, sixty-six handmade books & a field guide tracing imperfection and persistence.
Photographic work from SNAFU, sixty-six handmade books & a field guide by Theo Anderson, a meditation in time and form.
Photographic work from SNAFU — sixty-six handmade books & a field guide by Theo Anderson, evolving through time and form.

Curious, at times hopeful, and often scared to death.

From SNAFU — sixty-six handmade books & a field guide by Theo Anderson, a living archive in time and form.
Theo Anderson — photographic work from SNAFU, sixty-six handmade books & a field guide exploring the everyday.
Photographic work from SNAFU — sixty-six handmade books & a field guide by Theo Anderson, unfolding through time.
Image from SNAFU — sixty-six handmade books & a field guide by Theo Anderson, a visual poem of American life.
From SNAFU — sixty-six handmade books & a field guide by Theo Anderson, documenting the ordinary and the absurd.

I don’t have the answers.

Theo Anderson — image from SNAFU, sixty-six handmade books & a field guide tracing imperfection and persistence.
A black and white photograph of a rundown urban alleyway with damaged pavement, a leafless tree, a damaged fence, and abandoned cars next to an old building with peeling paint and broken windows.
Photographic work from SNAFU, sixty-six handmade books & a field guide by Theo Anderson, a meditation in time and form.
From SNAFU — sixty-six handmade books & a field guide by Theo Anderson, a living archive in time and form.
Theo Anderson — photographic work from SNAFU, sixty-six handmade books & a field guide exploring the everyday.

Sometimes it just is.

Photographic work from SNAFU — sixty-six handmade books & a field guide by Theo Anderson, unfolding through time.
Image from SNAFU — sixty-six handmade books & a field guide by Theo Anderson, a visual poem of American life.
From SNAFU — sixty-six handmade books & a field guide by Theo Anderson, documenting the ordinary and the absurd.
Theo Anderson — image from SNAFU, sixty-six handmade books & a field guide tracing imperfection and persistence.
Photographic work from SNAFU, sixty-six handmade books & a field guide by Theo Anderson, a meditation in time and form.

snafu

snafu: sixty-six books & field guide (2017-2025)

theo anderson

snafu is my long look at everyday life in America. Realized as sixty-six handmade books and field guide, it gathers fragments of the ordinary and the absurd, tracing the shifting texture of daily existence across time and place. Grounded in the American social-documentary tradition yet reaching toward a Whitman-esque embrace of contradiction, I accept fragmentation as a form of wholeness — a mirror to the American condition itself. Like Leaves of Grass, it evolves through time, gathering multitudes: clarity and confusion, humor and grief, beauty and ruin.

Photographs, in rhythm, become a visual poem — a handmade book. snafu becomes both object and document, evolving through time and form — creating a living archive, a singular and fluid narrative, and an ongoing experiment in photographic form. snafu began with forty-four books & field guide (2025) and is transformed into sixty-six books & field guide (late 2025).

snafu is about what happens when things don’t line up — when the story collapses and something real starts to show through. It’s my record of looking, and of being looked back at by the world.

Each of the sixty-six books is made entirely by my own hand — a process that takes six to eight weeks. The making is as much a part of the work as the photographs themselves: time, repetition, and touch become forms of seeing. The edition remains small and evolving, each copy a distinct object shaped by its moment of creation. Value is determined through direct conversation with collectors and institutions; each agreement reflects the project’s ongoing life and circumstance.

books

  • 10 - 12 photographs per book

  • 24 - 28 pages

  • 10 x 8 inches or 8 x 10 inches

  • pigment prints on archival paper

  • bound by hand using double wire

presentation boxes

  • 6 presentation boxes

  • 11 books per box

  • field guide (ochre box)

  • designated by a color dot

  • reverse chronological order

  • recycled anodized aluminum

  • scratch resistant & archival

  • 9 x 11.5 x 2 inches

edition

  • Indigenous words appear in respect for the peoples who first named this land.

  • designed, printed and bound by theo anderson

  • signed and notated in field guide

  • seven unique copies, late 2025

  • inquiries — theo@theoanderson.com

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