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This morning, I am full of questions. I haven't yet decided whether to produce a PDF and have that serve as my fulfillment of the SoFoBoMo requirements, or to actually order a book. I suppose the decision will ultimately depend on available time. To order the book, I would need to allow the time to revisit each image for the conversion to the Blurb profile, and the bad news is that I was painfully slow with that process when I did a bit of experimenting. The experts in that type of work probably knock them out quite rapidly, but I poked along at a snail's pace and the idea of going through that thirty-five times—on a rushed deadline—isn't particularly appealing.
I have some images in my mind regarding the general look of the book that I am going for; still, I continue to vacillate on size. I have decided to prep my PDF in a size available at Blurb, since I am going to try that service whenever I carry through to print. On SoFoBoMo eve, I spent some time at the Blurb site watching training videos and found the capabilities of the program quite impressive. I had flirted with the possibilities of Blurb many months ago and never followed through, but it appears to me that they have refined both their site and their videos to a considerable degree. The flexibility of their program certainly is promising. I took particular note of the ease with which one can translate a blog into a book. I immediately thought about some of the other participants in SoFoBoMo and what wonderful books could be produced from their blogs. So many of my favorite bloggers are not only amazing photographers, they are gifted writers and they could put together superb books with previously written text. Perhaps I will start egging some of you guys on to do this. Gordon, is there room for one more cheerleader on the squad?
Always room for more cheerleaders - I can't kick very high anyway.
ReplyDeleteOn the blurb/ InDesign front, I posted something last night that links to InDesign templates for blurb books.
I'm going to work with an 8x10 portrait book layout I think and see how it goes. I'll produce a PDF from InDesign and then have the option of pushing it into blurb's software afterwards.
I've been learning some of the ins and outs of InDesign and feel I know what I'm doing - to use the tool. Now the hard bit, how do you actually design something that doesn't look like a 3 year old did it ? :)
More cowbell!
This is more of an private message than a comment, so feel free to delete it rather than post it.
ReplyDeleteI notice in the 'pipe' that some of your posts without titles don't end up having a link appear back to the full entry.
It is entirely up to you and I don't want to start messing around with how you want to run your blog, but if you do put a title in the posts, people should be able to get back here to read them more easily (I only managed to work out who's posts they were by poking around under the hood)
Gordon, I can't kick high either, but I can yell pretty loud, so sign me up.
ReplyDeleteI'm stuck in the dark ages with Pagemaker 7 and not sure whether I will be able to pony up the money for an upgrade to my out-of-date InDesign (there are some disadvantages to retiring). At any rate, I certainly was tempted when I saw your post on that option.
As for designs by three-year-olds, maybe that's not an altogether bad idea.
I decided to post your advice on including titles on all my posts. (No more rushing along and forgetting that element.) Maybe my blunder will help some other blogger-newbie who can then profit from my experience. I appreciate your pointing this out to me, and I will clean that up today. Thanks for all your posts offering such valuable information.
looks like the links back are working now that you've added the titles in. Good!
ReplyDeleteThanks for dropping by and your support that I should also join the SoFoBoMo project.
ReplyDeleteI did decide to join, but most likely will not start until the end of the month do to the fact that we are still buried under a foot of snow. It is melting and 2 weeks should do the trick.
The subject I thought would be along the lines of Stairs, Ramps and Other Risers.
Since I live in Ottawa I am hoping to find a good set of compositions, but you never know how access to these building will work.
I do have a back up idea and that is to shoot food using paint with light techniques.
My normal photography is not time limited and I guess there is this concern with failure in finding enough good images in the time frame. But since I talk about creativity in my Blog I also need to push myself and see what happens.
I can’t wait to see all the final books.
Niels Henriksen
Niels, welcome. I am delighted that you decided to be part of this grand adventure. I empathize with with your concern over producing the thirty-five images within the time frame. However, I just keep reminding myself that this will be the first of many photo books and that, for the most part, each will be better than the one before.
ReplyDeleteI like both of your subject choices. Stairs, Ramps and Other Risers is my favorite, but I am also fascinated by the paint with light idea. I know you will make one of these work. Now, I have yet another book to look forward to.
By the way, if you should decide to go with Blurb for printing, I thought you might want to check the process for downloading your favorite blog entries straight into a book. That would enable you to put together a book in a relatively short time since the photography and writing have already been done. That project wouldn't fit into SoFoBoMO rules, of course. Still, it would make a worthwhile project after this first photo book. I look forward to following your progress on your blog.