The Bookworm - a photo on Flickriver

The Bookworm

            I’ve been going through a phase of producing books recently.  Not that you’ll be finding anything bearing my name in Waterstones anytime soon you understand, but the coffee table in the living room might start to groan at some point in the future.  So far, there is a book full of tales from here in Cornwall, and another of the two trips to Iceland.  In fact as far as the latter goes, there are still about thirty oven ready stories to share here.  I keep meaning to make a start on uploading those, but the winter season is proving quite bountiful at the moment.  Keep watching if you’re an Iceland fan, because it will be back here soon.

Latterly, I took advantage of the fifty percent discount that some of our favourite YouTubers have been peddling on behalf of one particular service in recent months.  You probably know the one I’m talking about.  I decided to go with all stops removed and selected a professional line book with an acrylic photo cover and leatherette binding.  Well if you’re going to have one, you might as well have a big one, I reckoned.  The reviews were encouraging, and the idea of seeing one’s own images on high quality printed matter was rather appealing too.  Even though printing remains a mysterious other world of photography to me.  A shy and retiring cousin who keeps himself to himself if you like. Some of you print your own pictures, and have probably begun to make sense of whether you’re going to reproduce your favourite landscapes on matte, gloss, or even silk.  Silk?  No I’m not sure either, although it sounds great doesn’t it?  “What’s Baryta?” I asked myself.  Had I once tried it with the nachos in that Mexican restaurant down the road, or was that something else?  And how do you decide between bamboo and hemp?  The myriad choices seemed almost as bewildering as the number of bodies and lenses on the market when I started dabbling about with this hobby.  One of you had even kindly told me about a printing workshop, partly run by Rachel Talibart, no less.  It sounded fascinating, but seeing as I had no plans to invest several hundred pounds in a printer of my own, and probably twice as much on ink cartridges, the mystery continued.  Continues in fact.  I decided to try gloss.  Three hundred and sixty-eight grammes per square metre.  Once upon a time I had the responsibility for buying the company’s stationery supplies, so I did at least have a feel for what that means.  Anyone need a paperclip?  I've still got some around here somewhere.

Then there was the theme for this latest addition to the family library.  The email with the unique voucher code had given me just thirty days to create my product, so I needed to be getting on with it fairly swiftly.  Iceland would have been the obvious subject, but I’d already done that, albeit on rather less opulent looking materials.  In fact that opulence meant this book was just going to be photos.  No silly yarns on three hundred and sixty-eight gsm glossy paper at these prices.  Half heartedly, I began to compile a collection of images from 2023.  But should I confine it to Cornwall, or was I going to add in images from further afield too?  It felt like a bit of a hotchpotch, so then I started a second project, called Cornwall in Winter.  This seemed a far more cohesive idea, although there would inevitably be some duplication with coffee table book number one.  

And then I found myself browsing images from just over a year earlier in Lanzarote.  No cross contamination with other books there.  I’d taken plenty of shots on that trip and in my own estimation had edited almost enough of them with a reasonable degree of competence.  I’d need to return to the fourteen month old raw files and mine some more images if I wanted something rather more substantial than a wobbly pamphlet, but then again it was about time I did that anyway.  It became quite fun.  The layout options encouraged a deal of experimentation and variation of aspect ratios, and I was surprised to see how effective some shots looked, spread over two pages in a six by seventeen format.  

Even at half price it was an expensive bit of work, but I’m impressed with the quality, and what Ali doesn’t yet know is that she’s going to be printing a book next.  Then my daughter, then my son after that.  I wonder whether they issue coupons to tiny people?  If so, my two baby grandchildren might be authoring volumes of their own soon as well.

Taken in: Spain / Canary Islands / Teguise / Famara (show map)

Taken on: November 22, 2022

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Lanzarote

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Canon 100-400 Mk2

Spain

Espana

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Atlantic

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Sets appears in: • Lanzarote 2022

Groups appears in: • Amateurs • Amateur Landscape more » • Flickr Social Club • Photography Week • Amateur Photographer Magazine • Flickr Social • Brain Vision. Art. « less

Camera: Canon EOS 5D Mark IV, f/16.0, 1/50 sec, 200mm, ISO 100 (more info) (hide info)

Camera:	Canon EOS 5D Mark IV
Lens:	EF100-400mm f/4.5-5.6L IS II USM
Aperture:	f/16.0
Exposure Time:	0.02 sec (1/50)
Focal Length:	200mm
ISO:	100
Exposure Bias:	0 EV
Flash:	Off, Did not fire
Exposure Program:	Aperture-priority AE
Exposure Mode:	Auto
Metering Mode:	Multi-segment
White Balance:	Auto
Color Space:	Uncalibrated
Software:	Adobe Photoshop Lightroom Classic 12.1 (Windows)
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