Rockport is not Port Aransas

While working on my book Common Tide; Port Aransas, Texas, I had a list of things from the Mercer Logs that I wanted to photograph and I was having trouble finding some of those things on today's Mustang Island. Things like gardens, chickens, cattle, horses, and pigs. So I thought that I could spread out my search to the mainland just across the bay from Port Aransas. Contact with county Farm Bureaus gave me the names of some farmers and that is how I found Four String Farm, an organic farm in Rockport, Texas, owned by Justin and Kayla Butts.

I made some photographs that I really liked on the farm of chickens and pigs and the garden and I thought I could slip them into the book but when I started putting the book together I could not include them. The book is about Port Aransas and Mustang Island and Rockport is not on the island. How could I explain a connection to a reader if they asked who has pigs like this or where did you find these chickens?

As much as the questions that I might be asked, the image above told me I could not use the images from Four String Farm. The landscape is different. I have not seen any area of the island that has vegetation like this image. It would not be true to the Mercer Logs from 1866 to 1877. But, I do like this image; the way the light filters through the canopy and you can see back into the tangle of the trees.

What I Learned in 2018

Well, here it is, the book that you have heard about many times over the last eight years.

COMMON TIDE

Port Aransas, Texas

Photographs Inspired by the Mercer Logs 1866 to 1877

Billie Mercer

It is a large book, 12 by 12, 166 pages. Perfect bound with a linen cover and printed dust jacket. 

How did it come to be? It started as an idea of things to do while Ned was going through treatment for cancer. I wanted to keep him busy with fun things. Ned's family were the first settlers on the northern end of Mustang Island in about 1855 and that settlement eventually became known as Port Aransas. We had vacationed there many times when our boys were young, so we loved the island. I told Ned that I wanted to work on a photography book about the island and use the logs or daily diaries that his family had written as a guide in making those photographs. Ned was always willing to go anywhere with me when I pulled out my camera so, April 2011, was the first trip. The trips continued even after Ned passed away. In fact, making this book became more important to me.

Starting in early 2015, I uploaded to Blurb different versions of the book, even had some of them printed as a proof. I wasn't satisfied with any of them. At the same time, I was looking for other publishers, graphic designers, getting estimates, and learning more and more about self-publishing. I was looking for the perfect book and I was looking for approval. Needless to say, I became discouraged and dropped the project for months.

Fears about artmaking fall into two families: fears about yourself, and fears about your reception by others. In a general, fears about yourself prevent you from doing your best work, while fears about your reception by others prevent you from doing your own work.

                                         Art and Fear by David Bayles and Ted Orland

In January 2018, I wrote out what I really wanted, a book for my family. I put aside all my concerns about the cost or marketing the book; or what a designer or publisher might want. 

Everything I had done earlier was dumped and I started over. I learned more about Adobe InDesign and fonts. Almost every day, I spent time on the book and in late October I uploaded the book to get a proof print. My sons received copies of the book for Christmas. I have to tell you that I'm pleased that I pushed this big project though but now I am excited about the responses I've gotten from photographers and book people. Who knows what might happen in 2019. Maybe it will get published for a wider audience. 

What I learned in 2018, and should have already known, is follow my heart and my vision. Just do it!

Helllooo.....Anybody Still Out There?

I can't believe it has been 28 months since I wrote a blog entry. I just seemed to run out of steam for the blog while I worked on other projects. But, for some reason, I'm feeling the urge to write again.

One of the big things that has happened is that I completed a book I have worked on since 2010. In order to do that I spent a lot of 2017 learning Adobe InDesign. I still am a beginner but I learned some on my own and then I hired Mary Meade to help me pull my ideas together with the master page feature of InDesign. Then 2018 was the year of the book. There is a lot to tell about that experience but I'll save that for other blog entries.

I've done some travel over the last 28 months, two times to Italy and once to London and the Cotswolds, Port Aransas a bunch of times, Crystal Bridges Museum in Arkansas, Austin, Memphis to see a grandson graduate from Rhodes College and maybe another place or two that I'm not remembering.

I had my 80th birthday and I've survived another couple of years. Just can't believe how fast time is passing.

Using the blog, I'm going to try to fill you in on what has happened as well as writing about current events. So, who among my blog readers is still out there?

Photographs from Sicily

Finally I have it. My book about my trip to Sicily in May. It is a 137 page Blurb book designed via the book module in Adobe Lightroom. Now those of you who do not have Lightroom and don't plan to make a book with it, may want to jump right to the end of this blog entry if you just want to see the book and not clutter your mind with Lightroom stuff you are not going to use.

 If you have Lightroom, you really should explore making a book. I'm not saying that because it is easy because there is a learning curve. And the book module does have limitations. I would like more templates from which to choose. I would like an easier way to add pages of text that would flow from one page to the next. I would like that the text didn't disappear when you change the template. And, of course, I wish the cost of one Blurb book wasn't so expensive. On the other hand, I haven't found another source that is cheaper and offers the color management that I've had with Blurb.

I care a lot about color management. I want what I see on  my screen to be the same as what my printer produces or what shows up in my books. Blurb is pretty much spot on with color and I am always watching my histogram to be sure that I do not have any clipping of the whites or blacks so that I also control the contrast.

Another thing I like about using Lightroom is that I can work with my RAW images and if one image needs a bit of adjustment to make it work better with its  two-page spread partner, it is no problem. Just jump back to the develop module and make the adjustment. When you go back to the book module the image is there with the adjustment. It really does make it easier to not have to worry about making the image a certain size JPG to fit an image window, not to worry about margins, gutters and cut lines. I mean, you are aware of them but the module does a good job of managing them for you. I've done a couple of books as PDF's outside of Blurb and it was a lot of work figuring all those measurements out. They made nice e-books on Issuu but I have a lot of MB's on my hard disk with the RAW images, the PS layered images and then the flattened and sized images that finally went into the books.

The Lightroom book module has been working for me but I have a couple of more complex books in mind. Now that I've cut my teeth, so to speak, on making a book, I may be ready to take on a more sophisticated design program.

Here is the link, if you would like to see my book, Sicily.

Don't Just Take Pictures, Make Art

Editor Brooks Jensen writes in the Editor's Comments of the May-June 2015 Lenswork Magazine:

Don't just take pictures, make art.
By this I specifically mean finish things -- be it an exhibition, a Blurb book, a website gallerly, a PDF or whatever else makes sense for your process and your content. The very act of committing to something all the way through to completion is one of the best ways to learn. 

I use to say that putting together an exhibition, especially your first one, was a huge learning experience. I'm not doing shows any more but I need the discipline of completing a project. It is nice to come home from a trip or a shoot and run though the images, mark some as the best of the lot. Maybe process one or two for FaceBook or the Blog. But nothing, absolutely nothing, is like deciding that the product of the project will be an exhibition or a boxed portfolio with an artist's statement, or a book that is designed and laid out with templates and text.

It is fine to say this is a nice image and so is this one. I like this too. But when I have to narrow down the shoot from 500, 1000, 2500 files to 20 or 25 for an exhibition, 15 or 20 for a boxed portfolio and maybe 150 for an affordable self-published book, that is when it starts to become a learning experience. Which images are the best of the best. Which images tell a cohesive story.

Then the images have to be processed so that they will be the very best prints I can make with a consistent look. It tests my technical knowledge but the other thing that is happening is that I am learning where my shortcomings are in making images. From that I learn to make the next project better.

Jensen is right. Don't just take pictures, make a finished piece of art.

The image above is Palermo, Sicily, made from the upper terrace of our hotel. And, yes, it will be in the Blurb book about Sicily that I'm working on.

What Makes Olga Run?

Last year about this time I wrote about reading the book Younger Next Year and how I drank the Kool-aid and was going to try to follow the recipe. I pretty much did what I set out to do since 2013, weight resistance training and cardio exercise weekly. Do I feel younger than last year? Yes, yes I do and not just physically but mentally as well.

A few months ago I heard about another book, What Makes Olga Run?: The Mystery of the 90-Something Track Star and What she can teach us about Living Longer, Happier Lives by Bruce Grierson. Wow, the titles of some books are getting to be so long they take up the whole cover. At my age I'm interested in living a longer, healthier, productive life so as you have probably already guessed, I bought the book.

Grierson uses Olga's amazing success in the USATF Master's track and field events to explore the mysteries of aging. Not from the standpoint of the deterioration of our bodies but looking at the extent that we can influence the aging process and keep going full out longer. Seeing Doc Severinsen's musical performance this week is an example of someone in their late 80's who is still productive and creative. Grierson's research for the book reveals that there are many completed and on-going studies that are confirming what I got out of  the book, Younger Next Year.

So, it looks like even if I do not have any plans to be a Master's athlete, I can't let up on my exercise schedule. Another thing I think it confirms is that it is important to be involved with friends and to always have plans for something in the future whether it is tomorrow, or next week or next year.

Most of the time, I think self-help books are kind of WooWoo---a little bit on the far side. Maybe I'm grabbing at straws but yeah, I'm drinking some more of that Kool-aid. It worked pretty well for the last 12 months.

Good Friday Procession in Colonia San Antonio

 

It has been a long day. Since going out to photograph the procession, I've been at the computer trying to figure out a couple of issues in publishing a book on Blurb. Everything I've found out has led me to another problem that has to be researched. My brain is fried but I did want to share some images from the procession today. Today was the first time I have seen a painted sawdust carpet. It was a block long and it was beautiful. Most impressive.

Maybe my unconscious brain will work on my book problems while I sleep. Tomorrow is another day.

Mercer Logs, 2

The book project about Port Aransas and the Mercer Logs has been on the back burner for a while but I have spent a good part of today, if not putting it on a front burner, at least I've turned up the fire a bit.

First of all I had an email from someone who is a relative of another one of the earlier settlers on Mustang Island. She was doing some ancestry research and came on my blog. Then, I also have a friend who has seen some of the images and a bit from the logs and almost every time I see him he asks me when I'm going to finish the book. I'm also wrapping up another personal book and I learned a lot putting it together and that encourages me to go back to the Mercer Logs.

I made this image the last time I was on the Island. The Mercer's called their place Rancho del Mar and they ran cattle and farmed. This picture of the grassland was made on the bay side of Mustang Island. Looks like it could still be a good place to have cattle but I have only seen a small herd one time.

Today, in a word processor I typed in more of the potential book text from the logs and I gathered all the pictures that might fit the text in a book folder. So as I have said, I've turned up the fire.

I Need An Editor

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.

Adobe's Lightroom 5 Gets a Thumbs-up

Adobe's Lightroom 5 has been out for a while but for various reasons, I just upgraded to it a month ago. Another learning curve. If keeping the mind active could stave off Alzheimer's, I'd be immune. Unfortunately that isn't the case. Still, having mental challenges certainly does make life interesting.

Anyway, back to Lightroom 5. I just started using it without learning what was new, I thought if I knew LR4, I'd be okay. It wasn't long before I had questions. I asked those questions of Google and up pops Adobe's Julieanne Kost's video series about LR5.  Well Duh.... I love Kost's videos. She is organized and presents a subject very well. I should have gone looking for what she had to say about LR5 in the beginning.

I certainly learned some tips about using LR in general but I think there has been some tinkering going on under the hood for features that were already in the prior version. The sliders in the basic portion  of the Develop Module seem to work better but then I'm also using a different camera so it could be the camera's digital file is better to start with. I really like the perspective correction that is in the Lens Correction portion of the Develop Module. I'd say it can correct about 90% of my perspective problems which is so, so much better than in LR4.

Previously I've tried to use the Book Module but it just didn't work for me. After looking at Kost's video on the up-dated version, I decided to start a big book project but it wasn't long  before I was back to the video. I watched it three more times and even made notes. I'm a slow learner. One of the reasons that I'd like to use LR5 to make the book is that I don't have to export specifically sized images into Booksmart. Then if I found that an image needed some tweaking, I'd have to go back to LR, tweak and re-export. If an image needs tweaking in the Book Module of LR5, I can jump to the Develop Module, make the changes and BAM, there it is all tweaked in the Book Module. So now I have a first pass for my book project.

Adobe's Lightroom software just gets better and better.

Bird by Bird Translated to Photography

I've added a new book to my ever growing list of ebook downloads. It is  Ann Lamott's book, Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life.  I discovered the book through my weekly newsletter from Brainpickings. Quite often I find that reading about any kind of creativity, but especially about writing, gets translated in my brain to my pursuit of photography. For example, Lamott writes and I take the audacity to translate it for photography because it so clearly says what photography brings to me:

One of the gifts of being a writer (a photographer) is that it gives you an excuse to do things, to go places and explore. Another is that writing (photographing) motivates you to look closely at life, at life as it lurches by and tramps around.

Most of the other quotes by Lamott in the Brainpickings article get translated in my head to what it is like to continue to be a photographer, how to find your way even if the world isn't beating a path to your door and how to be able to find the nourishment you need in the on-going practice of photography.

The name of Lamott's book comes from an incident with her young brother who waited until the last minute to write a report about birds for school. He was overwhelmed with the task ahead of him when his Father gave him a hug and assured him it would be okay. He just had to write it down bird by bird.

Writers write a story sentence by sentence. Photographers photograph a project photograph by photograph. The photograph above is just one photograph from the Port Aransas project.

Younger Next Year

Over the last 10 months or so I've lost some weight, I've gotten back to my Yoga class and I've recently joined a Cardio and weight class a couple of times a week. I was pleased with what I was doing but I had this feeling that it wasn't enough. Sure enough, as happens a lot of times in my life, along comes some inspiration. I can't remember who mentioned the book to me but I downloaded Younger Next Year for Women: Live Strong, Fit and Sexy Until You're 80 and Beyond, by Chris Crowley and Henry S. Lodge, M.D. I'm not that far from 80 so I'm glad they tacked on that "and Beyond" bit.

In many ways it is a breezy motivational book but I believe it has substance. It is built around "Harry's Rules" of which there are seven that you should follow for the rest of your life. I'm really connecting with the ones having to do with exercise. Basically serious aerobic exercise four days a week and serious strength training with weights two days a week. As I read what the book had to say about the science of what exercise does and why it was so important as we grow older it made sense.
I could definitely see how it could make it possible to lead an active life longer. I'm not so sure I'm in all the way like Crowley but I'll take it a step at a time. I'm definitely going to up my aerobic exercise.

I also like the diet advice although it isn't a diet book. Quit Eating Crap! is one of the rules. I can live with that.

There are a couple of rules that have to do with connecting with people, committing to goals and organizations or causes. They cite studies about the brain and how important human connections are to our health and emotional well-being. In general people who are connected to their community in many ways, live longer. The book talks about how as we get older we start to lose friends and family and we need to work diligently on making new connections. We need to say yes instead of no to opportunities even if we aren't sure we want to do it. Some say that San Miguel de Allende is the fountain of youth. If there is any truth to that it is because if you are open you can find friends and many ways to connect with the community.

There are some things in the book I don't like that much. Like, you are still going to get wrinkles, and saggy skin, and gray hair....stuff like that. (Like you see in the picture above. What can I say, I was testing out the new camera.) On the other hand if you can still ride a bike, and walk up hill to Salida a Queretaro, and have better balance so you don't fall down,  then I think trying to follow the advice is worthwhile.

Yes, the book is definitely motivating me so I guess I drank the Kool-Ade. I'm feeling pretty good right now but I think I'll feel younger next year.

BTW, this book leans a little more toward women but the original book was just Younger Next Year and it was more about men.