Photo Books

Has anyone thought of making a photo book?

Because of lockdown and being unable to shoot in a studio or even outdoors for most of a year, I have been spending a lot of time looking through previous photos.

For a couple of years now I’ve been wondering about doing a photo book but I’ve been unsure about which photos to put in it…I also didn’t have a title.

Did I need a title? Well yes, I did. I mean, every book has a title doesn’t it? But, could it be just any old title? Of course not! This is me we’re talking about 😀

For a few years, I was a member of a camera club and from time to time would enter one of their competitions. It wasn’t a necessity to title one’s images, but most people did so I thought I ought to as well. I hit on the idea of having to use a one word title which would suitably, well, title, the image! It became kind of a game! Oh, and I wasn’t allowed to use the same title twice!

So, I thought my photo book should have a one word title too.

A couple of years ago I came across a quote by Ted Grant, the Canadian photographer:

When you photograph people in color, you photograph their clothes. But when you photograph people in Black and white, you photograph their souls

I’d always liked that quote and I do think that a portrait does work much better in mono than colour: there is nothing to distract you from the light and shade of the image.

I wanted to incorporate the quote and the images would be all monochrome treatments as I shoot digital exclusively now. The images would also all be portraits. One day, out of nowhere, the title popped into my head:

Interiors

Meaning the soul or heart of the subject. That was it, I was off and running now! In a couple of hours I’d collected the images I wanted to use and started, using the supplier’s on-line tool, to design my first photo book 😀

It was actually great fun and I was really pleased with the finished product. It isn’t a huge great book, basically A4 or Letter sized, 26 pages with a printed cover.

Of course, having done “Interiors”, I now had to do “Exteriors”! This would be in colour this time but follow the same format though using a different quotation. This time from the American jeweller Harry Winston:

People will stare. Make it worth their while

Simple, but a great quote! “Exteriors” was more fashion oriented, all colour images and again, great fun to ‘curate’ the images and arrange them just-so.

Since then, I’ve gone on to produce “Darkness” and “Lightness” and most recently “Contours”. I now have two photo projects borne out of this which will complete 2 more books, to be called “Male” and “Work”.

As I haven’t been able to take many shots for a year, creating these books has given me a creative outlet for my photography. I have really missed not photographing this last year. Yes, I managed to fit in a couple of shoots between lockdowns but only a couple. So, instead of just staring at my previous work and wishing and hoping, I could look but with a purpose 😀

I highly recommend doing this. You don’t have to spend a fortune. In fact, you don’t have to spend anything at all. Most suppliers have an on-line or free to download design package and you can just use that to arrange the photos and choose backgrounds and add text or whatever you want really.

I found the whole process a lot of fun and so began to look through my photos with an eye towards putting some in other books, so looking for common themes. Cropping and positioning for the best effect; working out which photo should follow which; how two photos fitted together on a page etc etc. Probably a good couple of weeks overall, maybe an hour or so every other night. It is worth taking the time to get things right, especially if you do actually go ahead and get it printed.

It also gives you the opportunity to perhaps use images which were not quite as perfect as you might have wanted them to be, just because they really ‘work’ for the theme or really work together, in a series.

Having these books of images also means that I can use them as mini portfolios. As each book is themed, a prospective model can quickly see the sort of thing I’m looking for.

I’m particularly pleased that doing these books has prompted me, for the first time ever, to create a couple of projects for myself. “Male” will be all male portraits. You may have noticed that there aren’t too many male portraits on my site! Well, hopefully, by the end of 2021 there will be, and a photo book too! I’m not imagining that this project will be easy, but sometimes it’s good to challenge yourself isn’t it?

“Work” will be natural light portraits of people at work, just doing what they’re doing, ignoring me. I tried this a few years ago with a good friend of mine while he was servicing my car and after quite a bit of swearing, he basically ignored me while I snapped away. Got a few good shots from that session and it has prompted me to re-visit the idea.

Do you get photo books printed? If so, what of? What process do you go through to create them?

Got any photos of the finished books? I’d like to see them 😀

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