Reflections on Making Big Water

In June I released my first photography book. This was a dream of mine for a long time. Over the years I’ve gathered a decent photobook collection and once I started thinking about making my own book I spent a lot of time looking through books, gathering ideas. From fonts, to sequencing, paper types, sizes, etc.

I have been working on a number of photography series and I could have gone two ways with subject matter of the book. After mulling it for awhile I felt like the most fitting book to start with was with subject matter from close to home, which were my images from the Eastern Shore of Virginia.

Before starting out I created a few guidelines for myself to try to adhere to:

• Quality. From paper to binding to the actual prints, I didn’t want to sacrifice on any element. Knowing I wanted this to be my guiding principle is primarily why I decided to self-publish, I didn’t want to make any sacrifices.

• Location. I wanted to print the books as close to home as possible.

• Size. It needed to be a decently sized book. In my mind I wanted 12” x 12”, the same size as a record sleeve on my shelf. Music plays a big part of my creative process and I envisioned my book sitting alongside records on a shelf.

• Quantity. I didn’t want to have a bunch of unsold copies laying around. A common print size is 500 - 750 and I knew that I’d never sell that amount. So I wanted to keep the number of editions to a reasonable amount.

Finding Partners

Before starting this process the only books I’d ever made were family photobooks through Shutterfly. Where you just arrange the photos and click submit. I was (and still am) a novice when it comes to publishing books however one of the big things I’ve learned is that you need good collaborators and partners if you want to make something more than you may be capable of through some of the online photography book printers. The first partner I needed was a book designer. After scouring the internet I came across the name, Stefan Killen at Red+Company. Stefan is a designer based in New York City. I was initially drawn to his design work, but Stefan also is an avid photographer and in particular a pinhole photogapher - a perfect match. I also go to NYC a couple times a year and being able to meet face to face was a big plus. After our initial conversations Stefan knew immediately what I was going for and was a huge part of bringing the overall aesthetic of the book to where it finally ended up. He was an excellent sounding board for ideas and helped provide a critical eye to the design.

In addition to a designer, the largest partner for the project was the printer. Finding a printer proved to be a more time consuming process than I originally anticipated. Many print shops do a very good job, but photography books, in particular black and white photography books, are not a specialty of many printers. As I mentioned above, I wanted to make the book as close to home as possible. Unable to find any partners in the Mid-Atlantic area, my search short-list eventually focused on the NY/NJ/Boston areas. I ordered many samples and books made by other photographers to get a feel for how the final copy would end up. I narrowed it down to two shops. One was cheaper but it couldn’t do the correct (smyth-sewn) binding for the 12” x 12” size I wanted. Instead using glue for the binding at that size. It was either go for a smaller size at a cheaper cost or go for the more expensive option that ticked all the boxes for me in terms of quality. My answer was to go for quality. The printer I ended up going with was Puritan Press in New Hampshire. They were a great partner and I’m very pleased with the final outcome.

Sequencing

One of the most fun/rewarding/worst/hardest parts of designing a photography book is sequencing - how to order the images. I also wanted to limit the book to 40 images. I’m not exactly sure why I had 40 in my head. Part of it is that I like the simplicity of a nice whole number. Additionally from looking at many landscape photography books over the years, 40 images, seems about right. Not too long and repetitive to look through in a single session, but not too short either. Limiting myself to 40 images of many more possible also helped me tighten up the flow. It helped remove anything that was superfluous.

The process for sequecing was to print small copies of every image that I was considering for the book. Then slowly overtime I would arrange them in different ways, creating very rough copies of a book and flip through it. I didn’t sit down to do this in one setting - it was more spend a few minutes on it here and there to get feel for how the work presented itself. I originally started with the idea of a single image per page (versus having images printed on front and back) and through this process I realized that the images needed to be paired together. This created a bigger headache but the process of picking and choosing which images fit best together, while also not being repetitive or predictable, was rewarding and created a stronger “narrative” to the book. As seen in the image below the best way to do it was to lay all the prints out and mix and match. Again this was not all done in a day. I’d work on it for a little while, tweak it, come back to it later and see how it felt in hand. This required me to cut images that I really liked, but there may not be a place for it and it had to go.

Sequencing and pairing images for Big Water. Which ones made the book and which ones got cut?

The final cut. Final proof images provided by the printer

Dummy Copies

I had heard this in my initial research for making a book and it was proven correct, but making dummy copies throughout the process helped considerably to get an idea of how the final copy would feel. Not necessarily how the book itself would feel, but how the images flowed and the eventual story they would tell.

The final dummy copy, provided by the printer. Other than receiving the actual books, this was the most exciting part of the process.

Production

After all the iterations and design tweaks you finally have to put a stop to the project and put your money on the line. If not, I would still be tinkering away with it.

Because Puritan Press are great professionals at what they do, the actual production process was simple. Unfortunately I did not get to go up to New Hampshire to see the process in person, my contact provided daily video updates, a couple of which I’ll share below.

The books arrived to the studio on my 40th birthday, a fun way to celebrate a big milestone.

The end product was exactly what I was hoping for. Sometimes its hard to be 100% pleased with your own work, but this is one of those occasions where my hopes and expectations were met. I’m very proud of the end result and can’t wait to start on another book at some point down the road :)

There are still copies of Big Water available if you would like to add one to your collection.