Although I have accepted Kindle books for general reading, I love to have and hold photography and artist's handmade books. To me they are precious art objects that I can look at again and again. That feeling has created an expectation for making a personal book. It is an expectation that makes me question every issue about the book. Cover, paper, size, sequencing, text, font, images, relationships.
In trying to put this book together, I think I'm making a mountain out of a molehill. I don't expect to list it on Amazon. It isn't going to be for sale. I'm making it for me and family. However, I am agonizing over it as if it were to be placed in the competition for the best photography book of 2014.
On my bookshelf I have Douglas Holleley's book, Digital Book, Design and Publishing. He writes that after you have a preliminary dummy of your book, and this is where I am now, read it as if you were seeing it for the first time....Put your intentions and desires in the back of your mind and look at it objectively. ........one can get so wrapped up in the creative process, that one loses all sense of objectivity about one's work. Intentions get mixed up with effects: effort and time spent get confused with results.
Yes, that is definitely where I am now, I have the dummy, or as he calls it the maquette which sounds much more professional doesn't it. And I have lost all sense of objectivity. I need an Editor.
I know two extraordinary photographers here in the DF who could possibly do an edit for you. One is the fellow who sent you the book. The other is another man who has published several books of photography. Might help.
ReplyDeletexoxo
There are plenty of editors for hire, even within spitting distance of you. I'm one of them, but I'm surely not the only one.
ReplyDeleteWell I work as an editor for several french publishers and I am as well a writer and photographer if I can be of any help... Please get in touch via Facebook
ReplyDeleteI would buy a copy!
ReplyDeleteI would buy a copy.
ReplyDeleteMaybe you should just put it away for a couple of weeks and then look at it again with a fresh perspective. Your photos are exquisite - you are your best editor.
ReplyDeleteMaybe you should just put it away for a couple of weeks and then look at it again with a fresh perspective. Your photos are exquisite - you are your own best editor.
ReplyDeleteloulou bateau took the words right out of my mouth. The maquette needs to be put aside for a while until "your intentions and desires (are) in the back of your mind". I think Douglas Holleley omitted the part where waiting or a break is needed.
ReplyDeleteYour fotos are incredible. It will be a fantastic book. Lucky family.
Joan
Trust your own eye. It's already proven to be a very keen one. And I agree with Christine - I would buy a copy!
ReplyDeleteBarbara
P.S. The picture at the head of your blog is intriguing - aside from loving the colors and composition I want to go through the door.
To everyone who has offered suggestions, thank you. And to those of you who have said just put it down for a few days, I think that is a good idea. I was doing okay with editing and sequencing the images but when I started to add text was when I got confused. Fortunately I saved the book before I started to add text so I might go back to that point.
ReplyDeleteI really, really appreciate that you like my images.
I'm going sit on this a few days and then I might take up some of the suggestions for a consultation with an editor.