The day is finally here! I’m graduating and you’re ordering my book! How exciting is that?
So here’s the way this is going to work. There are two versions of my book available: The Regular Edition (TRE) and the Special Limited Edition Signed Copy (SLESC). The content of each book is exactly the same with the exception that I’ll be signing the SLESC, natch. Also, the price of the SLESC is anywhere from $4 to $10 cheaper1 than TRE.
No matter what version you end up buying, I’d recommend you go check out the preview on Blurb: Preview Rain :: Volume II – The College Collage Note: You only get to see the first 15 pages. The actual book has 60 pages.
My long awaited photo book is coming out on Friday.
34.0 mm || 1/160 || f/4.2 || ISO1600 || NIKON D70 Golden, Colorado, United States
I graduate soon! The “M” which normally lights the mountain is been temporarily converted into the words largest graduation countdown timer. It currently shows “4” and that makes me super excited.
55.0 mm || 1.6 sec || f/5.0 || ISO640 || NIKON D70 Golden, Colorado, United States
I am going to miss views like this though. However, as a student I never really found the time to stop and smell the roses; so I do look forward to doing that, in whatever capacity that may be.
18.0 mm || 1.6 sec || f/4.0 || ISO640 || NIKON D70 Golden, Colorado, United States
And coming back to Seattle. I feel it’s been to long. Not since I last visited, but since I last lived there. I’m looking forward to being back and being able to do the things I love.
I finally finished up Rain :: Volume II today, just short of 6 months since I first blogged about the idea. I proof read it several times, ran spell check, proof read it some more, and finally ordered the first copy! It will take about a week to print and 3-5 days to get here, so I should hopefully have it in hand before I graduate. Assuming everything looks good, this puts me on track for a May 8th release date, which is what I was hoping for. I did not end up putting an ISBN on this book for a variety of reasons. Next time I guess.
The Rain :: Volume II came out 59 pages with around 70 photos. An introduction, a handful of short stories, a handful of anecdotes, and a special conclusion. Almost all the photos (except for three, I believe) have exposure (focal length, speed, aperture, and ISO), date, and location information. Final price is $40.951 plus shipping (which is almost another $9). Please note that I am not making any money off this book. If you feel that I should be, you may use the donation button found on my site.
I am planning on making available a special limited edition signed copy. This copy will be about $36.86 (yes, cheaper), plus shipping2. Because I have to order at least 10 copies to get this discount, I will A) need at least ten people to B) prepay. All the details about how to do this will be available on May 8th.
In the mean time, sit back, relax, and know that awesomeness is soon to come.
50.0 mm || 1/40 || f/1.8 || ISO400 || NIKON D70 Golden, Colorado, United States
50.0 mm || 1/25 || f/1.8 || ISO200 || NIKON D70 Golden, Colorado, United States
I really tried to make it less expensive. However, quality won out in the end. It’s a bookstore-quality hardcover with dust jacket and premium paper [100-pound text silk-finish paper, I’m told] ↩
unless you want to pick it up from me, than shipping will be “free” ↩
Some updates on the photography book I’m working on:
Obviously January 31st has come and gone with no book, this means that the release date will be May 8th. I’ve also got an ISBN number for my birthday from my Uncle, so I’ll be joining the Big Boys™! I was actually thinking about this the other day, my desire to play with the big boys. I remember in 2nd grade when we had to write “books”, I tried really hard to make my books look like the real thing. I’d have the blank pages, and the about the author page, and one time I think I even had some sort of coupon you could send in. Some things never change.
Anyway, May 8th will be the date. I’m glad I’m waiting because I think I will be able to put some amazing pictures in that I take this semester. I’m also thinking about preordering some books and selling them at my graduation party.
There’s also a chance that the book may be more than 40 pages. Unfortunately, this will add $5 to the cost. The good news is that I get up to 40 more pages with that $5, so the book could theoretically end up being 80 pages (yikes).
I’ll leave you with this picture of Dan Fluharty that I took a couple weeks ago at The Feed. The Feed is this awesome event we do every other week where we eat dinner and then go roast s’mores outside. If you’ve ever tried to take pictures around a campfire, you probably noticed how they end up appearing white and the glow of the fire is completely lost. Well, I had this idea to use a CTO (Color Temperature Orange) gel on my flash. It’s really just an orange sheet of translucent plastic that makes the light look like a tungsten lamp (which is 3200K…daylight is 5600K-ish). As it turns out, CTO is pretty close to the color of a campfire. The net effect is that I can now use my flash to supplement the light of the campfire. Don’t forget that the goal isn’t to blast the subject, just provide some fill light. I thought the pictures turned out pretty well for this experiment:
Nikkor 50mm || 1/60 || f/1.8 || ISO1600
As always, check out the rest of the photos on Flickr: The Feed
I started working on the photo book I mentioned earlier and it’s coming together very nicely. The current plan is to offer it as a 40-page premium paper, 10″ x 8″ hard cover book with dust cover. Pricing will be around $35, not including shipping. I am considering a softcover, which would be about $10 cheaper.
The better news is that I will not require firm orders from anyone! I’m using a company called Blurb, which does print-on-demand. I also may personally sell ten signed limited-edition versions that would be 10% cheaper (yes, cheaper).
I’m also contemplating putting a real, live ISBN number on it. That would allow me to sell it in book stores if I wanted…not that I’m planning on that. It’s mostly just to add to the authenticity and make me one of the Big Boys™
As for a release date, I’m contemplating two different days: January 31 (which is my birthday) or May 8 (which when I graduate). There’s a lot of work that I still need to do, layout and content is only 66% complete. Then I need to have some people edit it and I also need to get a proof made to make sure everything looks good. One reason to wait until graduation is so I can put any last pictures I get in the Spring 2009 semester (maybe something from New York?).
Any any event, there’s about 50 pictures in the book right now with three full stories and lots of anecdotes. When I get closer to release, I’ll put up some proofs.
Finally, the tentative title is: Rain :: Volume II1
I’d love to hear any thoughts people have in the comments about release dates, hard vs. soft cover, the special edition, ISBN, etc.
1 A couple years ago, I ordered a couple of small booklets using photos from Seattle @ Night, that was “Rain”.
I was reading a post on a blog1 over the summer about how digital photography has change the way people take photos. One of the primary benefits of digital photography is that every picture is essentially free. Take as many photos as you want and it really won’t cost you a thing.
Being able to take photos for free2 does great things for the learning curve. Had I paid for all 15000+ photos I’ve taken with my D70 since I bought it four years ago, I would have spent over $2000 on developing photos alone. The benefits of digital are clear.
However, there is a trade off with digital. Digital photography is, by its very nature, a form which has no physical product. It’s just a series of 0’s and 1’s that make up an image. There is no negative and there is no final print, at least in the traditional sense. For the last year, I’ve been shooting in RAW format, which is the digital equivalent to a negative – if there ever was one. However, I rarely make physical prints.
When I do make prints, it’s usually when A) someone asks me to; B) I’m giving them as gifts; or C) I’m framing them for an art show. Of all the 10000+ photos I currently have on Flickr (which represents my body of work), I’ve printed no more than 125 photos, and most of those where for a Christmas present I made my Mom a couple years ago.
The post I was reading indicated that the author wanted to print more of his photos out because he had an incomplete feeling of the photo process. He wanted to be able to touch and hold them. And while I don’t share exactly the same feeling of incompleteness – most of my “career” I have been shooting digital and have never had the chance to even use a darkroom (although I’ve been inside several) – I do like the idea of being able to touch, hold, and see the physical results.
In particular, I’ve had this urge to make a photo book. Moreover, I would like to share the opportunity to purchase this photo book when/if I produce it.
The Idea:
My current idea is a history of the college years as seen through my lens. It would probably contain about 40-100 photos. Each photo would contain a story surrounding the events of the photo, probably no more than 300 words per a photo. I would suspect that many stories would be edited forms of blog posts, however I also anticipate that I’ll have to write several new stories as well.
I’m currently looking at both soft and hard books. Hard covers are obviously more expensive, but are also much nicer and will last longer. Since I want to keep prices low, a hard cover version would probably contain less photos than a soft cover version. I want to keep the price below $50, ideally around $30, but I haven’t run all the numbers yet.
My question to you is, is anyone even interested? Leave your comments and/or a simple yay/nay. You are not committing to anything at this point. I’m simply trying to figure out if there’s an interest. *wink* It would make a good Christmas gift *wink*
If there is enough interest, I’m looking to partner with either QOOP or Costco to have them printed as-needed. While this may raise prices a bit, it prevents me from having to bulk order the books and then hope that enough people want to purchase them.
In the meantime, I’ll leave you with a couple of photos I took up on the “M” a couple weeks ago:
