I am experimenting with e-books and I thought I would see what I can do with just Blogger and Issuu. The current sample is a mess, frankly. I rushed through this today with some photos I have posted here earlier, and I didn't bother to change some things from my SoFoBoMo project. There are typos, in abundance; the page footers are incorrect; and, you many find any number of gremlins that I haven't even noticed yet. But, it's the beginning of something that has been on my mind for a while. We'll see where this leads.
Showing posts with label photo book. Show all posts
Showing posts with label photo book. Show all posts
Sunday, August 9, 2009
Why Not an E-book Experiment
I am experimenting with e-books and I thought I would see what I can do with just Blogger and Issuu. The current sample is a mess, frankly. I rushed through this today with some photos I have posted here earlier, and I didn't bother to change some things from my SoFoBoMo project. There are typos, in abundance; the page footers are incorrect; and, you many find any number of gremlins that I haven't even noticed yet. But, it's the beginning of something that has been on my mind for a while. We'll see where this leads.
Wednesday, November 26, 2008
Happy Thanksgiving!
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I want to wish everyone a beautiful and peaceful day of giving thanks for all our many blessings. In my opinion, this is one of the most significant observances of the year. I am always so embarrassed and ashamed if I can’t find a long list of things to be grateful for at least at this time of year. Doug Stockdale has a lovely post today on finding contentment. While you are visiting his site, linger a while and you will find a treasure trove of hot tips on publishing, plus a link to his latest book at Blurb and some wonderful photography. Doug is generous with the details of his book-making journey and shares a wealth of information. Now, see, there's something else to be grateful for.
Enjoy tomorrow, but don't eat too much pie. We don't want you stuck with giving thanks for antacids
Wednesday, April 2, 2008
SoFoBoMo Questions
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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?
Saturday, March 15, 2008
Software Puzzles
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This past week, I celebrated having survived our first Open House and spent some time exploring the possibilities of laying out the photo book in my creaky old Pagemaker. I have an early version of InDesign, but just never could get anywhere with it—not that I had ever become a power user of Pagemaker. To complicate matters, I have seldom opened that program during the last three or four years. Furthermore, I decided that I had better learn to compress a PDF for posting on the web—another new skill. Not surprisingly, I stumbled about quite a bit.
For some reason, I couldn’t remember how to number the blasted pages in Pagemaker and floundered around in Help before finally solving the mystery. I had only ever used Adobe Acrobat for the purpose of creating simple PDF's limited to two or three pages. Up until now, compression hadn’t been an issue. I still don’t know exactly what date I will begin my SoFoBoMo project, but these are the sort of things that I wanted to work out before April 1. I certainly won’t want to devote two out of my thirty allotted days to stumbling about in the Pagemaker and Acrobat Help sections. So far, so good. Pagemaker will never be my favorite program, but horses for courses, as the saying goes.
Thursday, March 13, 2008
Sofobomo – The Next Chapter
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Tuesday I was so relieved to have settled on a theme for my SoFoBoMo project that I couldn’t get to my camera fast enough. For most of that day, I shot as though my hair was on fire. Yesterday, I was exhausted from the adrenalin high and only experimented a bit with a different lens. I have spent much of today agonizing over a book cover. Of course all this activity, is the result of my struggle to refine both my theme and my plan for execution.
I have these recurring visions of someone viewing my book and asking, “Why did you make this book? What is it about.” “Because a bunch of other people signed up for a a challenge and I thought I would give it a go” isn’t an acceptable answer. That’s what has had me stewing. Okay, I’m making a photo book. What is it about? Will I produce a collection of thirty-five mediocre images that collectively scream—these photographs were taken for no other reason than to get to the magic number of thirty-five. For at least a week, I felt the title of my book should be “Sharp Images of Fuzzy Concepts”, because I was haunted by the famous Ansel Adams quote. Can I clearly define what this book is about—why it should be made? Am I clear enough about what I want to say? And, just as importantly, can I say it well?
While Paul Butzi has laid claim to “the stupidest idea ever beheld”, I may have to challenge him on that when all is said and done. After much agonizing, I have committed to a theme that has some emotional heat for me; now, I wonder whether I can come close to making pictures that will convey some of the very feelings that have produced the heat. My subject is saying goodbye to a place that has been my home for twenty years. I will make my thirty-five pictures within a radius of about five miles of our home here in the San Fernando Valley in California. This is the very small world where I spend most of my time—our house, the yard, the barn area where the horses are stabled a couple of miles away, and an area along the Little Tujunga Wash, between the stable and our house. So, I finally know what I want to photograph and why. Now, comes the issue of successful execution. Can I bring a viewer into my simple little universe—the places where I spend, by far, most of my time—and put across some of the feelings of melancholy I am already experiencing at the prospect of leaving it behind? Or, will the passion be strong, yet the craft weak?
I confess that I had not wanted to immerse myself in these feelings about another ending. But, here I am plunging into the abyss. There is no easy way out of this. The feelings will supply the energy and inform the work. To deny the feelings is to turn off the energy supply. Best to not snuff out the flame. Predictably, I will waste some time trying to worm my way out of the pain that goes with the experience and rely on the “understanding” of purpose to get the job done. Nope. It doesn’t work that way. Red Smith’s observation on the ease of writing included in William Bronaugh’s book, “Just Open a Vein” says it all. “All you do is sit down at a typewriter and open a vein.” If we set out to create—regardless of the medium—there is no getting around the struggle. What SoFoBoMo amounts to is that a whole gang of us have elected to—if I may paraphrase Red Smith—pick up a camera and open a vein. I suppose the only sensible course is to take comfort in the observation made by more than one participant that it won't last forever. They are right, of course. A month will fly by. No, wait. That last part isn't comforting, at all.
I have these recurring visions of someone viewing my book and asking, “Why did you make this book? What is it about.” “Because a bunch of other people signed up for a a challenge and I thought I would give it a go” isn’t an acceptable answer. That’s what has had me stewing. Okay, I’m making a photo book. What is it about? Will I produce a collection of thirty-five mediocre images that collectively scream—these photographs were taken for no other reason than to get to the magic number of thirty-five. For at least a week, I felt the title of my book should be “Sharp Images of Fuzzy Concepts”, because I was haunted by the famous Ansel Adams quote. Can I clearly define what this book is about—why it should be made? Am I clear enough about what I want to say? And, just as importantly, can I say it well?
While Paul Butzi has laid claim to “the stupidest idea ever beheld”, I may have to challenge him on that when all is said and done. After much agonizing, I have committed to a theme that has some emotional heat for me; now, I wonder whether I can come close to making pictures that will convey some of the very feelings that have produced the heat. My subject is saying goodbye to a place that has been my home for twenty years. I will make my thirty-five pictures within a radius of about five miles of our home here in the San Fernando Valley in California. This is the very small world where I spend most of my time—our house, the yard, the barn area where the horses are stabled a couple of miles away, and an area along the Little Tujunga Wash, between the stable and our house. So, I finally know what I want to photograph and why. Now, comes the issue of successful execution. Can I bring a viewer into my simple little universe—the places where I spend, by far, most of my time—and put across some of the feelings of melancholy I am already experiencing at the prospect of leaving it behind? Or, will the passion be strong, yet the craft weak?
I confess that I had not wanted to immerse myself in these feelings about another ending. But, here I am plunging into the abyss. There is no easy way out of this. The feelings will supply the energy and inform the work. To deny the feelings is to turn off the energy supply. Best to not snuff out the flame. Predictably, I will waste some time trying to worm my way out of the pain that goes with the experience and rely on the “understanding” of purpose to get the job done. Nope. It doesn’t work that way. Red Smith’s observation on the ease of writing included in William Bronaugh’s book, “Just Open a Vein” says it all. “All you do is sit down at a typewriter and open a vein.” If we set out to create—regardless of the medium—there is no getting around the struggle. What SoFoBoMo amounts to is that a whole gang of us have elected to—if I may paraphrase Red Smith—pick up a camera and open a vein. I suppose the only sensible course is to take comfort in the observation made by more than one participant that it won't last forever. They are right, of course. A month will fly by. No, wait. That last part isn't comforting, at all.
Tuesday, February 19, 2008
KISS
(Click on the thumbnail to view larger image)I have been reading some of Mark Hobson’s posts at The Landscapist, and he has posted some very useful information for making a photo book. His choice among the POD printers is Shutterfly. Ding! I had completely put out of my mind the fact that a little over a year ago I ordered a book from Shutterfly. It wasn’t wonderful, but that was pretty much all my fault. I have learned a great deal since then—that seems like a long time ago. Besides, on that occasion, I simply used their templates, and I wouldn’t do that again. Still, I have some experience with that setup, and this would save me the angst of searching for the right printer and familiarizing myself with another printer’s format. I also found very appealing Mark’s suggestion to simply do the layout in Adobe Photoshop, forget learning another program, and feel free to keep the text to a minimum. Hooray! I’m in favor of all that. Perhaps, my favorite part of Mark's posts were his advice to keep it simple. All too frequently, I forget that old wisdom, KISS—Keep It Simple, Stupid.
The idea of getting 35 shots I can bear to have printed in a book is still intimidating. Plus, I will have to lay the book out page by page in Photoshop—I stopped with Adobe Pagemaker (that was way back) and never made my peace with InDesign. I can save that challenge for next year. Nevertheless, I feel encouraged. Now, if the theme I have in mind just holds up to scrutiny and we ever sell our house—and we ever move, and I ever have time to pick a camera again!
The idea of getting 35 shots I can bear to have printed in a book is still intimidating. Plus, I will have to lay the book out page by page in Photoshop—I stopped with Adobe Pagemaker (that was way back) and never made my peace with InDesign. I can save that challenge for next year. Nevertheless, I feel encouraged. Now, if the theme I have in mind just holds up to scrutiny and we ever sell our house—and we ever move, and I ever have time to pick a camera again!
Monday, February 18, 2008
That Blasted Hourglass
(Click on the thumbnail to view larger image)Some people (Let’s face it women, mostly. Because, over all, we do more housework than men do. ) talk about housework being conducive to a meditative state. After all, you don’t burn a lot of brain cells dusting and scrubbing. The greatest percentage of your mind is free to wander.
Lately, I have been doing A Lot of housework and my mind is wandering in ways that are not necessarily productive. Now, some of the woolgathering is devoted to soul-stirring images of life in Bear Valley. Pictures of sunsets replete with breathtaking clouds swimming in shimmering golds, hawks swooping down in the meadow grass just beyond our back door, deer wandering across our pasture land and stopping to graze, our horses gamboling in the field with the Tehachapi’s as a backdrop—pretty sweet stuff. On the other hand, some stuff creeps into my head that is not so comforting. Lately, one image that returns all too frequently is that of the blasted hourglass of time. (Natuarlly, this is partially connected to The Book. SoFoBoMo, that is.) But, here’s what’s troubling. That sand in my hourglass isn’t passing through to the bottom slowly and smoothly, as it should. The darned thing is functioning more like a funnel—and I’m talking about a biiiig funnel—one you would use for flour, or rocks, for crying out loud.
Lately, I have been doing A Lot of housework and my mind is wandering in ways that are not necessarily productive. Now, some of the woolgathering is devoted to soul-stirring images of life in Bear Valley. Pictures of sunsets replete with breathtaking clouds swimming in shimmering golds, hawks swooping down in the meadow grass just beyond our back door, deer wandering across our pasture land and stopping to graze, our horses gamboling in the field with the Tehachapi’s as a backdrop—pretty sweet stuff. On the other hand, some stuff creeps into my head that is not so comforting. Lately, one image that returns all too frequently is that of the blasted hourglass of time. (Natuarlly, this is partially connected to The Book. SoFoBoMo, that is.) But, here’s what’s troubling. That sand in my hourglass isn’t passing through to the bottom slowly and smoothly, as it should. The darned thing is functioning more like a funnel—and I’m talking about a biiiig funnel—one you would use for flour, or rocks, for crying out loud.
Sunday, February 17, 2008
SoFoBoMo Dreams—or Nightmares
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Hard as I try to stay focused on cleaning the house (our realtor comes Tuesday morning and she is a tough grader), my mind keeps drifting to thoughts of photo books. Of course, I pretty much need a theme I can shoot in our new home in Bear Valley. By April 1, the date the SoFoBoMo season opens, we expect to be moving, or at least spending a great deal of time at our new place. Choosing a theme that tied me to my current area would be awkward, to say the least. I have tried to come up with a theme that capitalizes on the current chaos in my life, but so far, nada. More than once, I have “settled” on a theme, then picked at it a couple of days, and discovered it doesn’t hold up for me.
Yesterday, as I cleaned and listened to rock music from of the “British Invasion” on FM, my mind wandered as usual to the photobook, and I hit on another idea. (Must have been The Stones or maybe it was The Animals. Hmm. One of those themes might work in Bear Valley. No, not really.) Now, let’s see if this idea lasts more than two or three days. I’ll give it a few days before saying it out loud. In the meantime, I have been spending every second I can excuse from work reading the blogs of other participants. Everyone is incredibly generous with information and research. I am rapidly learning that the best part of this entire project is being a tiny, tiny piece of this great group-adventure. While I am nearly paralyzed with fear about this thing, I know I am going to learn so much that it will be worth the scare.
Several bloggers are posting useful information about the SoFoBoMo challenge. I have already mentioned Paul Butzi (The Instigator) and Doug Stockdale, who generously shares his thoughts about his own journey. In the last couple of days, Colin Jago has posted a list of all the participants with links and John Seltzer has created a new blog dedicated to SoFoBoMo, complete with a blogroll including all who have accepted the challenge. A great big "thank you" to all the guys who contribute so much. Of course, now any hopes I may have harbored about slinking along the edges of this, blessedly unnoticed, have gone up in smoke. John's new site is titled, "Tell The World". Now, it's official. If I make a fool of myself, the whole world will know.
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