Book Ordered

A couple of nights ago I uploaded my book to www.ubyubooks.com Almost as soon as I had uploaded it I thought, "Hmmm, perhaps I should have....". 

Next time I'll finish creating it and sleep on it before I send the files.

One of the things that I am considering changing is the text. Some of the profiles are quite lengthy. 

Initially I wanted to keep the text in a box the same size as the photo on the facing page but this wasn't possible without making the text too small to read. Now I think that perhaps I should only include an excerpt from the profile and possibly include the whole profile at the back of the book.

Another way that I could try to stop the text dominating the photograph is to print on postcards with the text on the back of the card. I quite like this idea because if I bind or box the cards in the right way they could be separated and laid out on a table. 

I’m going to explore these options further.

Self Publish v On-line Publisher

This week Matt showed the class (in true Blue Peter style) how to put a book together. He made two. One with staples the other with rivets. They both looked great. He's obviously made quite a few books and he made it look really simple. It's a tempting option. 
I'm still planning to get a book printed by one of the on-line publishers but I may try making my own as well.
I've now played around with the software from Bob Books. It seems to be able to do everything that I need but I've found it slightly less user friendly than Blurb.

I'm downloading the software from ubyu while I'm writing this. I've seen a sample done by them and it was pretty good. 

Book

I spent a lot of time last week photographing my artist's dummy. I now have 14 different poses to match profiles that I have found. It's been great fun doing them and the people that have seen them seem to like them as well. You'll have to wait a little longer to see them because I'm not going to post them all here.....Not yet anyway.
I now know what style I would like my book to be, and have some photographs and text to use so I thought I'd have a go with some of the printing company's software packages. 
I came across an article in March 2010 issue of The British Journal of Photography ( On-line copy here). The author recommended using suppliers who used the ink-based HP Indigo presses rather than suppliers who used Xerox and Kodak presses which use toner based technology. He recommended Blurb, Bob Books and iPhoto.
I have downloaded a copy of Blurb's software package which is called Book Smart. I've found that it can easily cope with the layout that I want.

I like the flexibility that it gives me and, so far, it hasn't been difficult to make the changes that I want. It seems to be a very user friendly package.

Book

Now that I have decided the subject of my photo project I can start thinking about the layout of the book. 
I've been having a look at a few different styles. Some websites are better than others at describing the various styles of binding. I found this description very useful.

The Ambrose / Harris book "Basic Design 01 - Format" is really good for ideas about different styles. It explains the terminology and shows examples of some of the more interesting ones.

I toyed with the idea of using french fold or a tip in.

However, I think these are too fussy for my project. I would like to make a fairly small (possibly A5 size) landscape, perfect bound book. I think that a soft cover would work better than a hard cover but I want a substantial weight of paper. 

So far I haven't found a supplier that will do this with as few pages as I want. I'm aiming for around 10 photographs which would give me about 22 pages when I add the narrative, intro etc. Some of the publishers start with a minimum of 64 pages.

Flyers

Thanks for all your suggestions Matt.

I've redone one of my ideas for the exhibition flyers. I've taken the film strips out and I've used all of my own photos this time. The dimensions are 6x4, so normal postcard size.

I guess posters are probably better in portrait format. 

Online Profiles

I got hold of a few profiles which made me smile and took a few photos today.

Mr. Having a Bad Day

Mr. Comfortable in my Own Skin

 Mr. Howler

If I run with this idea I guess that I won't have to change my title. It seems like everyone is taking a leap "Into the Unknown"

Project Idea

I've had a really fun weekend so far.
Over the weekend I've been thinking about this project and realise that time is ticking on and I need to make some decisions. Although I am still playing around with lots of different ideas I think the time has come to pick one and stick with it.
I have an artists model which must be about 60 years old and I've been playing around taking photographs of it in different light and in different poses. For example: 

Humility

Teenager  (Kevin)








On Friday night I took some photographs of a friend. She is a professional lady and wanted photos for her business website, but she also wanted some taken with a view to putting then on an on-line dating agency.
I'm fascinated by the way technology has come into our lives and the on-line dating agency is very much part of modern day life, so I am planning to ask people to send me profiles that have made them laugh, cringe or intrigued them in some way. I obviously won't know what the person actually looks like because I won't see their photograph so I will be able to create my version of them using my artists model and a few props. I will also be able to play around with the lighting as much as I want.
I think this could be fun.