I have continued to think about a SoFoBoMo project, shooting square. But I need to find something else than just the 1:1 aspect ratio to provide a unifying theme.
I have currently 206 square format photographs, taken between June 5th and 14th, so there is plenty of material for a SoFoBoMo book. But I'm not yet sure whether this material provides a basis for a book of photographs. It may be enough.
I have been reading Milan Kundera's essay collection L'Art du Roman, which discusses the art of writing novels. This little book contained some thoughts which seem to apply also to photography, at least in an indirect manner. This crossing of disciplines may not be so surprising as Kundera was a composer before turning to writing. Perhaps I may even be able to use in the SoFoBoMo book some of Kundera's number-based principles of composing. Have to see.
In any case, it is now much easier to do such a book than last year. Then I didn't have any experience of using Pages as a typesetting tool, and there were all kinds of problems in post-processing to get the right kind of PDF output (small file, good quality). I even managed to make a printed Blurb book out of the project with relatively little extra work, which is useful to know in advance in case the book turns out ok (or turns out at all).
Well, this may be of use to someone else as well, so here is a collection of links to various hints on making photobooks:
- Making good-quality PDF files from Pages using Ghostscript
- Publishing with Blurb and Issuu, using full-bleed layout and the 25 x 20 cm book size
- Generate separate jpg files of the pages, useful for making Blurb books (use 300 dpi instead of 150 as the output resolution)
- Some final notes on SoFoBoMo last year (too light paper in Blurb, have to remember to fix this year if making a printed copy)
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4 comments:
Juha, that is a very nice image. The shapes that are created by the in focus leaves are mirrored so well by the background and the cropping is good too. It's clever and I like it, how does it look in black and white?
I could work very well in black-and-white. But for now I'm not doing any post-processing to my photographs, straight jpegs from camera it is. Have to try taking a b&w version sometime.
I meant to write "It could work", not "I could"... That is, I agree that a b&w version might have been best.
Oh, I'd never be arrogant enough to suggest that "a b&w version might have been best". I believe that art should be accepted the way the artist presented it, after all you had full reason for doing exactly what you did and that is to be respected :)
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