I'm obviously not busy enough

I appear to be thinking about a book.

I am motivated by an avoidance of working on another book, the contra dance project, which is creatively becalmed right now. And I appear to be home more this month than I anticipated, so I'm making a project for myself. I'm also acting on my revelation the other day that I have an inordinate number of photographs of one place, Montlake Fill, the old garbage dump behind Husky Stadium that's the premier birding hotspot in Seattle.

To keep things sane I'm only looking at my digital shooting, from which I have a hundred and a quarter odd selects (from 3500 images). I'm not even considering my previous two decades of shooting film there—it's been that kind of place in my life. I have them disarrayed on work tables, pinned to my display wall, scattered about my mind as I ride my bike and wash the dishes. I have no idea what I'm doing. I am a terrible editor of sequence.

The end result will be a Blurb book, in time for the holidays. But to get from here to that—I am stymied. Anyone know a good editor who can help me?

Comments

[Tommy Williams]

I don't know a good editor but I sure hope you write about the process here. I would love to know what it's like to put it together.

[Mike C.]

Doug,

I've made quite a number of Blurb books now, and my advice would go like this:

1. Decide on your size, format, and maximum no. of pages first, and stick to it. Cost will be a factor here, but you will mainly benefit from the "creative squeeze" of sticking within the constraint of your original plan.

2. Set aside x pages for prelims and y for, um, postlims. Assuming -- to start with, anyway --the classic photobook layout (mainly "blank page facing photo page" pairs, interspersed with the odd "photo facing photo" pair to break it up a bit), it's straightforward to calculate the number of images you can actually use. Say, 40.

3. Although the Blurb software is good, I'd recommend buying a portrait or landscape presentation book with clear insert pages, and using it with disposable prints for playing with sequencing. What looks good illuminated and perfectly flat on a screen does not necessarily work when held as a book will be held.

4. Let the photos tell you the sequence they want to be in. Don't be afraid to jettison your favourite images in the interests of making a book that works. This is the hardest part.

5. Think about using different sizes of image, and occasional multiple images on a page. Books where all the images are precisely the same size bore the eye. Small variations in size can enliven the visual effect considerably.

6. Sounds obvious, but: experiment with colour for the book text, esp. headers and footers. It's easy to leave it all in black, but you're missing a trick if you do.

7. Keep it simple. The worst books I've made have been those where I've thought "I have free rein to do what I want, why not pull out all the creative stops?" A question that answers itself...

8. Avoid the 7" square books like the plague, unless their claims to have improved the print quality are true.

9. Don't expect to sell a single one!!

Of course, given my experience of (9), you may question the validity of (1) through (8)...

Good luck!

Mike

[Mike C.]

I should have added:

10. Don't worry too much about arriving at the "perfect" sequence. No-one but you will ever know or care... I have sometimes resorted to throwing small prints into the air, and seeing how they fall. I can't put my hand on it right now, but there's a brilliant quote from Frederick Sommer about the perfection of "chance" arrangements -- he would throw a handful of pebbles, and the arrangement would be perfect. No intervention he could make would improve on it. There's a lot of wisdom in that. I always catch myself trying too hard to tell a formal "story", when there's no story to tell.

Mike

[Doug Plummer]

Mike,

These are great suggestions, thanks. As it turns out, I just booked a week of shooting at the end of the month, so my recession-coping strategy might have to go on the back burner for a while longer.