Just over 2 weeks before sofobomo. What will I shoot for that period? I have a few ideas which will be done whether for sofobomo or not.

For those of you planning on printing your sofobomo projects you may like to read this from Jonathan.
While you are at his site take a wander through his pictures, I enjoy most of what I see there.
What is sofobomo? go here.

Working late has done strange things to me, hopefully I will get more time to get back into my photography (not that I don't always have a camera with me) so that I am all limbered up and ready to go sofobomo 09.

A special offer on one of my favourite pictures from the SoFoBoMo project, Frosted Window. The picture has a wonderful 3D quality to it and once mounted you need to look at it several times to figure out if the curtain is in fact behind the glass or if this is a picture of curtains behind glass, a fascinating picture.

The print will be on Harman Gloss FB AI using K3 pigment inks. Delivery worldwide is free!
be quick, only 20 are available at this price.

I was more interested on this night of the people looking at the Sydney Opera House rather than the building itself.

This post is to see what extra traffic is generated by posting a subject that is popular, iconic and will often be typed into Google. Will the fact that I have now posted a picture of the Sydney Opera House draw more attention to the web site, draw more people to my photography?
Will it work better than posting pictures of abstract views of backyard (mine or others) junk?
In the end does it really matter whether I get one hit per day (my own) or 1000s of visitors per day. The important bit is that I am creating things, even if it is boring dribble to most people and a few pictures I am proud of put on a web site that is basically an off the shelf software package.
If SoFoBoMo has taught me one thing or at least brought it to the surface since I think I knew it already it is that I love to create things. Creating a series of pictures and putting then into a book format has been one of the most rewarding photographic experiences.
There is no longer the search for the winning picture, now there is just picture taking of what is interesting. If something good comes from it, great, if not well then it was great to have my eyes open to everything and my senses alive to the world around me.
In a strange way whether the pictures are good or not so good does not matter, the winning is in the noticing, the heightened awareness and the quietening of the left side of the brain.

To those waiting for their books of Balcombe Heights I ask you to please bare with me, my printer is not enjoying this paper.

Printing the SoFoBoMo book has been an interesting learning curve. My thought was that double sided paper would be a problem in regards to orientation and also having facing pages correctly numbers may be troublesome. Seems these were the easy hurdles to get over.
There is more time spent in feeding a printer which does not like to pick new sheets correctly than in shooting the project, editing, laying out a sequence and writing text.
No wonder so many other people have gone down the path of POD (Publish On Demand).

The paper chosen for printing is Ilford Gallerie Smooth Heavyweight Matte Paper, quite a mouth full. At 200gsm it is also quite heavy for bookpaper and has been a challenge to fold and trim with the guillotine. The guillotine is rated for 25 sheets of 80gsm which is equivalent to 10 sheets of 200gsm but I still feel it will not live long at this load.

Four whole copies of the SoFoBoMo have now been printed, one copy for my wife, two have left for the US and one sits in my camera bag for those occassions when people would like to see what I do.
More paper has been (back) ordered along with inks for printing. Another 14 copies are to be printed of which half are for family and friends and the rest out to local organisations that have an association of some sort with Balcombe Heights.
Many of the books done for SoFoBoMo have been on POD (publish on demand) websites with the possibility that these books can be purchased by anyone. After reading David Beckerman's posts on his POD trials and tribulations and then Paul's I thought I'd home brew my books. A decision I am glad I made.
Creating the books, creating anything really, comes as a joy to me, something I have been doing ever since I can remember. I am lucky enough that I create things for a living, granted creating electronic gadgets is not usually considered artistic but it feels pretty close to me.
Is anyone else printing their own books? Is anyone having their POD books printed?

The last few days of putting this sofobomo book together has been hectic but it is nice to have completed the project within the 31 days.

Click on this link Balcombe Heights to download the pdf version. You can also see the gallery of pictures without the small amount of text here.

Rushing along now trying to get my pictures together before the Friday 16th deadline for my SoFoBoMo. There have been 27 across the finish line already with some wonderful work done, the question is how many of those that signed up will post on www.sofobomo.org ?
The big question for me is will I actually finish since no layout work has been done yet. Here is a quick gallery of pictures that made my SoFoBoMo.

There is less than 2 weeks left on my SoFoBoMo project and the editing has begun. My lesson today, there have not been enough pictures shot. Over almost 3 weeks only 4 hours of shooting (on this project) and 214 pictures made of which 16 are accceptable.

So many more pictures to be taken and my next available morning is 3 days away.

Editing the pictures I have taken for my sofobomo project is going to be difficult, I'm not sure I will have a set that feel like they are cohesive.

Several of the early starters have completed their projects and they can be seen on the official www.sofobomo.org website here.

Splitting up the book into themes can make the editing more simple as a whole body of work no longer has to represent one idea but it can have several threads, like chapters I guess. Sixteen pictures of people using an area, another sixteen or so of details within the area and a few general views.

To many chapters and this idea falls apart.

Read more! »

Half way in respect to time but shooting is not complete let alone editing my sofobomo project. This mornings shoot was freezing. The temperature as the sun rose was about 4C, not a wonderful time to get on a push bike to go to a photographic destination. The fingers were fine, nice and numb, it was when they thawed once back home that the pain begun.
contacts after the break...

Read more! »

This morning it was raining, that usually does not stop me making pictures or walking about in general. The reason for not going out in the rain is beacuse my sofobomo destination is only a short bike ride away and I refuse to start the car for such a short distance, riding a bike in the wet is not much fun. Walking would have taken me to long this morning, there is work to be done, so today may just be used for editing.

Just more excuses.

So this morning was the beginning of the sofobomo for me, it feels great to have actually begun something, something you could call a project instead of my usual wandering capturing singular pictures.

On my pushbike at 7am, a late start, I headed off to Balcombe Heights knowing I was going to start with the buildings at the northern end of the area. The next 45 minutes (96 frames) was spent limbering up, trying to get a feel for what was going to work here, at this stage it looks like pipes, windows and rooftops (always had a thing for roofing).

The idea of following through someones project via contact sheets is so very interesting for me, seeing how a photographer worked and what the final edit looked like makes the journey as compelling as a short story. So the contacts for this project will be popping up here every now and again. Laugh, cry, wince along with me.

Read more! »

a dark smoke filled smelling shed.

It is the 14th day of April and I really wanted to start my sofobomo project today. Time seems to just slip by without any real photographic output, yes I have a few more prints on my walls from recent short spaces in time when I've been able to squeeze a few shots in. The picture with this post is one of those, it was taken while playing hide-and-seek with the children. It is these small spaces in time that get filled with photography, the short spaces between other events (like hiding and being found).

If sofobomo has done one thing for me, at this stage it would be that it has shown me that my photography seems to have taken a back seat to work (and will always be backseat to the children).

This is something that needs serious addressing, less working hours anyone?

A very hectic week this week so I have not and will not start until some time next week. My posts here will also be a bit light on for content.

Last night in a state of exhaustion I made the decision to photograph an old Masonic school grounds. It is a short bike ride from home and a nice place to spin the wheels. The area has something like 16 old school houses and is built on a gently sloping hill.

Most of the buildings are now rented by small organisations or clubs, there is a local radio station, a pottery class, child minding, model railway club and a few others I cannot recall. The more I think about it the more I am happy with the decision to photograph this area and to be starting a project.

Gordon McGregor has created a Yahoo pipes thing so you can keep up to date with the many people writing about their own experiences, cool.

Today is the official start day of Solo Photo Book Month. I still have not decided on a subject to take on for the 35 pictures. The idea of having to pick a subject makes me think that the result will be shallow, what I think should really be happening is that I just continue on taking photos of the thing I really like taking photos of.

But then is this was an assignment given to me then selecting a subject should not be on the basis of things I already do anyway, on the other hand the assignment could be taken on as a book of things that you already take pictures of put into a formal arrangement.
You can sit and think about this stuff all day long and not get a thing done, a few early morning walks letting my mind stroll elsewhere maybe all that is required for me to have a book subject sorted out.

So I have been thinking about the type of book I will be making for SoFoMoBo.

I am not totally new to the idea the of a book, it has been on my mind for a few months now. During 2007 I got to visit and stay on the central coast (Toowoon Bay) of NSW one night a week for work. During that time I amassed hundreds of pictures and sharing them with others seemed like a good idea and what better way than a book. The book is going to be 36 pictures in total, 36 being chosen because the Hahnemuhle photo albums were 40 pages in length. That allowed a title, introduction, index and colophon pages and 36 pictures.

The book size in this case was chosen by the default number of pages in the album, the layout and amount of pictures were chosen based on that as well. SoFoMoBo stipulates 35 pictures which is darn close to the 36 pictures for the Toowoon Bay book. So to quick track my decisions on the layout of the SoFoMoBo book I will follow the same layout as the yet to be printed Toowoon Bay book.

To share the book with everyone online there will be a pdf version made, it will be made first since that will be the only way you get to see it unless I ship paper copies to you. I was thinking of making the pdf version similar to the Lenswork pdf versions of their extended portfolios but those do not look like the printed version of Lenswork. It would work best if both versions had a similar feel and that if you read one version you get a very good idea of what the other is like.

Paul Butzi posted back in January the announcement of SoFoBoMo, Solo Photo Book Month. The idea carries on from similiar projects for novels and musicians.

I have known about this project probably since its announcement as I read Paul's site regularly. If it wasn't from there then many of the other authors of blogs that are on my daily web surf would have alerted me as many seem to have taken up the challenge.

Up until now the whole idea seemed a bit difficult, still does, but what the heck I'm taking up the challenge. What better time to take up a new challenge than when you have no time, many projects on for both work and home, no preparation, no plan, no idea. Should be quite a learning process!

Quite some time ago I worked within a company that got a new manager, nothing special about that but I remember him explaining why he asked so many questions. he said "I do not know what I do not know", a line I will never forget and is how I am feeling about this whole SoFoMoBo.

What will the 35 pictures be of that go in the book? what will be written in it? how will it be set out? what software to use? what format? what other questions should be asked when you start to create a book?

The project is a 31 day block starting April 1, 2008 and ends by May 31, 2008, There had better be some answers forming for those questions soon.