SoFoBoMo 09: my books, wrap-up

End of the beach, Mundesley, Norfolk, June 2009

I've got there, it's over. Here's a summary of what I did, why I did it and what I learnt along the way (with all the self-promoting links, natch).

Part 1: On England's Pleasant Pastures Seen

Norfolk, May 2009

The first two books have titles inspired by Blake's poem "And did those feet in ancient times" (better known as the hymn Jerusalem), which is evocative of all that is English. This one covers the rural county of Norfolk.

It was designed from the outset as a print book (available from Blurb with a free print offer!) with the unusual aspect of a bottom-edge binding. This is a layout I've been meaning to try for a while. The online pdf version attempts to recreate some of the experience of that format.

All of the photos wee taken using a rangefinder (Zeiss Ikon) on colour negative film (quelle horreur).

Part 2: Upon England's Mountains Green

Blencathra, Cumbria, may 2009

Following on from the rural landscape of Norfolk, this is about the hills of Cumbria. From the outset it was designed as an online book but in a format that could readily be converted to print. I was experimenting with mixing colour and black and white, multi-image pages, background colour and captioning. Variable quality of images but turned out rather better than I had imagined.

All the colour work was with a Panasonic LX3 camera, all the black and white with a 4x5" field camera on Ilford FP4+ roll film.

Part 3: Under English Skies

Swaledale, June 2009

A purely online effort, using images from a photography workshop in Swaledale, Yorkshire. Title comes from my observation that England seems to have very particular skies, which suits the very particular landscape photographed. Some pretty good photos. Book was designed from the outset as a purely online book, taking advantage of variable page sizes etc afforded by a purely electronic format.
However, I think I'll extend this idea into a longer series of my best landscape work from the UK and turn it into a printed version.

Part 4: Seafront

Fishing on the beach, Mundesley, Norfolk, June 2009

Another effort from Norfolk, this time based around the seafront of the village of Mundesley. Again designed as an online "book" but in a very different format, further exploring the unique capabilities offered by electronic presentation. Of course, it could be printed (large) but that isn't really the point.

Both books 3 & 4 were shot entirely with my Canon 40D.

There we have it - four very different books, four different cameras, two different types of film.

Why so much? Partly my travel schedule - 5 trips during the SoFoBoMo period (not all planned at the start) meant I couldn't really focus on a single topic. So I used that to my advantage to explore different ways of doing books and shooting projects.

I've learnt a few things:
Electronic presentation of photo work has its own characteristics. It is possible to produce entirely satisfying work solely for that medium, if one is prepared to think in a different manner to traditional print layout.
Editing is a tricky business - choosing work that fits together is not the same as picking a bunch of good photographs. For this effort I went for first impressions, quick selections, cutting down the time I applied as exploring the form of presentation was more important than content.
Practice with book layout and workflows for preparing images helps. Editing aside, I can easily assemble a book in an evening (3-4h). Good preparation helps: having text written, images processed (but not sized) and a clear idea of layout & storyline are requirements to do things that quickly.
Putting together presentable work takes less effort than one might imagine. While I'm not claiming any of these as works of Fine Art, they're reasonably good and didn't take a huge amount of effort, shoehorned as that was around a busy work & travel schedule.
Shooting with film is not a good idea for large volume or time-pressured work. The camera time is about the same, and I produce less frames but the processing time is high: develop, scan, dust spot, apply corrections, dust spot, prepare for print, dust spot... I do not intend to use film for SoFoBoMo 2010.

Overall it's been fun, it's got me out when I might otherwise have stayed indoors and it's taught me a lot (again) about my photography. It pushed my meagre time-management skills (although I work well to deadlines). I continue to develop the running themes in my work and see some large chunks coming together. And it was fun.

I've now downloaded around 50 of the other books and I'll be posting some comments on them in due course.

SoFoBoMo 09 pt1: in print

"On England's Pleasant Pastures Seen" Blurb book cover

I got my print copy of "On England's Pleasant Pastures Seen" from Blurb this morning. Exciting stuff. This is this best quality book I've had yet from them - the print quality, colour reproduction and depth of colour are spot on. I do allow for lower quality than I can produce with a tuned print on top quality paper but this is very nice. This time I went for the standard hardback with the loose cover which seems to work well for this one. As a total package it is very satisfying.

I also like the layout that I chose - bottom edge binding so the pages flip down. Nice for perusing while sat in the arm-chair and my choice of text layout works just the way I wanted.

On England's P...

A view of the coun...

By Martin Doonan

Book Preview

So now I'm happy, it's available for all the world to purchase from Blurb. I'd really like a few folks to buy a copy, particularly so I can get feedback on the unusual layout. As an incentive, I'm going to offer any one who buys a copy a print of any one of the images in the book at no extra cost. Printed on Harman FB Gloss paper, shipped to anywhere. Just drop your email address in a comment (won't be published) to get in contact.

SoFoBoMo 09 pt4: completed

Seafront cover, my 4th SoFoBoMo 2009 entry

I've not been blogging the progress of this one, partly due to the novel format and partly because I was able to complete it so quickly.

Find the file at the SoFoBoMo website. 6.7MB, about 60 images (I didn't count) but one of the lowest page counts.

It's an experiment in online presentation of an idea, so I welcome comments particularly on the format.

Now I finished my SoFoBoMo efforts for the year, i can spend more time looking at some of the others, more time doing other things I should and some time reflecting. I'll be posting a personal wrap-up towards the end of the week.

SoFoBoMo 09 pt3: completed

Yes, I know it's mad but I've done a third. This one from the workshop I attended in Swaledale, presented more like a slideshow. Larger, higher quality pictures so a files size of 7.6MB. Get it at the SoFoBoMo website.

I'm really happy with the photographs I got from this trip and this is a collection of some of the best.

Now to finish number 4...

SoFoBoMo 09 pt2: completed

SoFoBoMo 2009 part 2 cover

Late last night I got part 2 of my SoFoBoMo 2009 effort completed. Find a copy at the website by clicking this link. Small file: just 2.5MB, 36 images including the cover, 57 pages.

Best viewed at 100% or less as a 2 page spread with cover - that way you get the captions alongside the pictures.

Not my greatest collection of photography but OK at this resolution. it has also been an opportunity to try a couple of different ideas in layout. The more I do these photobooks, the quicker and easier it becomes to make the final layout, which gives me more opportunity to think about the other aspects.

Enjoy.

SoFoBoMo 09 pt2: the title

Tiny fern, Cumbria, May 2009
Almost certainly won't make the SoFoBoMo cut

Now that the first book is out of the way, I've put some more thought into the second one. I now have a strong idea what sort of layout I'm going to do, mixing the colour and black and white work. I also have a title: "Upon England's Mountains green" with the same source for the title as the previous book.

I've not got into selecting from the digital shots. I think I'll leave that until I get the film back next weekend. I'm still not entirely sure whether a thematic or geographic structure will work best, and for that I need all the material in one place.

SoFoBoMo 09 pt1: completed

SoFoBoMo 2009 book 1 cover

"On England's Pleasant Pastures Seen" is now complete. Pick up the pdf at the SoFoBoMo site linked.

47 images, 55 pages, a mere 4.9MB. Advice for viewing the pdf: view as single pages - it's not designed as spreads - and don't use a zoom of more than 100% as the images are relatively low resolution.

Tomorrow I'll put together an actual print version - the layout will probably look at bit strange in the pdf as this one is really meant to be seen as a physical book. What I will be doing is laying out the print version so that the binding is on the bottom edge (which means making a left biding with rotated pages). the idea being that this is a more natural way to view a book of photographs when sat in a chair with the book in your lap.

SoFoBoMo 09 pt1: book layout

I'm cracking through the layout for the first book. All the images are finally processed (did I mention how much I hate dust spotting scans?). I've figured out the overall structure. Still working on text.

I hope I can be finished over the weekend, before I head off on Tuesday.

One problem I have with this book is the difference between online and physical book formats. I intend to Blurb this one, trying out an idea I have for book layout (more on that later). If it works, it may become my standard for printed books. Trouble is, there is no direct way in an online version to mimic the physical experience I'm trying to create. In the end, I'm going for a compromise which may end up looking a bit funny.

SoFoBoMo 09 pt2: digital proofs

UPDATE: this time with the proof sheets in correct order.

Earlier I posted the proofs from my project on Norfolk (SoFoBoMo part 1). This time around it's from the second project from the Lake District (SoFoBoMo part 2).

This set of proof sheets is from the shots I took with the LX3 - there will be more on how the camera worked out in a separate post. There will also be a number of black and white shots taken using my large format camera, although shot on roll film as 6x9s.



I had had the idea that I'd put a book together entirely shot as 6x9s during the course of last week. On the first day it became very clear that generating 7 images per day was going to be too much, especially as the walking was as much a part of the trip as the photography. Then I had the idea of mixing in images from my pocket camera. This is also going to give me an opportunity to experiment with some different aspects of presenting a book. So I have about a dozen shots on film (yet to go in for processing) and 134 digital to choose from. Should be enough for 35 selections.

Title for this project is not fully decided but I expect to use a similar source as for the Norfolk project.

SoFoBoMo 09 pt1: roll 4

The last of the proofs. Now I've seen them all, I've got it clear how I want to group & theme the book. Now all I have to do is the final selections and editing (and book sequence, and collation, and text and...)

I'm off on vacation for a week. No internet, no computer. Just me, the hills and a couple of cameras.

No posts until next week.

SoFoBoMo 09 pt1: roll 3

The penultimate instalment of proofs. I'm at that stage where I'm not quite sure I took enough shots for a decent 35.
Final set should be up tomorrow morning.

SoFoBoMo 09 pt1: roll 2

The proofs from the second roll. All scans are now done, just got the inversions to get through for the rest.

SoFoBoMo 09 pt1: roll 1

Now I've taken the photos it's time to do the processing. I realised about the time that I started the scan inversions that I've picked what is probably the most labour intensive processing route for me: colour negatives. Oh well, I've made that bed and shall have to lie in it.

This is the proof sheet from the first of the 4 rolls. These are pretty untouched - linear scanned as a positive, inverted with ColorNeg (which includes white balance adjustment). A couple needed shadow/highlight adjustment at this point. Proof created with Lightroom print module: I created 2 versions, this JPEG and a pdf (using pdf995 print driver). The latter I'll use for making paper selections.

This first project is now entitled "On England's pleasant pastures seen" which is a collection of photos from around Norfolk. Title taken from Blake's poem "And did those feet in ancient time" better know as the hymn "Jerusalem".

I'll post the other proof sheets over the next couple of days as well as more thoughts on the whole editing process as I go.

SoFoBoMo: I think I've started

Yet another business trip, camera came with. Got out on a breezy evening to the coast and rattled off a roll in an hour. If I can get out for an hour or so each day the rest of the trip, I should have enough for a SoFoBoMo project.

Further to my earlier post on being less serious about SoFoBoMo, comes this from Colin Jago. I'd agree with him. This challenge is perfect for anyone with a camera (and a computer). Fancy gear not required. Weeks off work to shoot not required. As much as anything, I'm using SoFoBoMo as the excuse I need to get away from the office on time. The full-time job continues and SoFoBoMo isn't worth wasting my valuable vacation days on.

This current project I've started will only allow 4 after-work shooting opportunities, with a couple of weekends available for processing. I've got 6 rolls of film with me, if I can expose 5 of them I should be golden.

Last year, I put together 2 projects. Din't take a single day off work. My Kristiansund project took just 3 rolls of film (72 frames) and a couple of hours walk to do the shooting. Used an old film camera. Pictures taken in some off time on a business trip with long hours in the office. Processing was evenings and weekends.