Big, bold, and beautiful. Enter the classic coffee table photography book. Blurb 11×13, hardcover dustjacket with oatmeal linen cover, grey endsheets, and Mohawk proPhoto Pearl (140# Mohawk Photo Gloss, 190 GSM). Oh, baby. I rarely make books like this anymore because I rarely have the time to make work worthy of such a beast. But when it comes to a test book, nothing is off limits. You should also know, I pay for all my books. Blurb does not. If I had a dollar for every photographer who said to me, “You only make books because Blurb pays for them.” Well, this little fact is for you. Love, Dan.
If you claim to be serious about being a photographer but won’t pay for a test book, you just aren’t serious.
I am digging the new matte cover option. It took fifteen years of harassment to get matte covers, and I now feel like it was worth the effort. I can’t see ever using gloss again, but that’s me. Have always preferred uncoated stocks and matte materials even though they don’t wear as well as coated or gloss. The best thing that can happen is your book wears out. It means people were actually looking at it.
The title of this book is “Birding in Morocco,” but the book contains no bird images. This was done on purpose, and this idea was developed BEFORE I left for Morocco. As I mentioned to the students, I always have a story idea, at least one, in mind BEFORE I go. This way, I always have something to keep my focus while shooting. This book is about birding in Morocco, kinda, but not in the way that you think. Just like a special ops troop hiding in the jungle. I like the element of surprise. I used a hardcover dust jacket, knowing I was going to toss the dust jacket before stenciling the linen cover, which I haven’t quite gotten around to. I will stencil, “Birding In Morocco,” straight onto the linen. I thought about burning it on, but don’t have the time to make a mold.
Simple design. The vast majority of pages are a single image on the right-hand page. This is purposeful. I want you to ONLY look at ONE thing. That’s it. No caption, no page number. Nada. And remember, this is an 11×13 book, so each image is about 12 inches across. That’s HUGE. And I shot 16×9, so they are somewhere between a standard image and a panoramic. Occasionally, based on the image composition, I ran a left page image, as you see below.
I would call this book more a “classic” monograph style, without the multiple decades required to make the work. I’m cheating here a bit, people, working with what I have. I am not making this book to sell, only to use as a sample. I’m not sure I have a real monograph in me at this point. I’d rather just focus on selfies…….
Plenty I would change about this book. Typeface, design, density of this or that, but overall, I’m so impressed with the physicality of something like this. Making a sample like this makes me want to go and make something better, something more complete, so that I can make one of these for real. I’m happy with some of the frames from Morocco, and the overall experience was so fantastic. It’s always a bit of a letdown to come home after something like this, but these books make me feel like I can relive the experience anytime I wish.
One note on the paper. If you are a traditionalist and looking for the paper that best represents classic photographic paper, it’s hard to beat this Mohawk offering. (I named it at the top.) It’s contrasty, holds great color, and has a great black. It’s also the heaviest paper we make. When you do dustjacket books, you can choose your linen color and the color of your endsheet. Kinda nice. I do think books of this nature require a certain number of pages to balance out the feel of the overall piece. Meaning, you don’t want to do a book like this with twenty pages. It would feel like all cover and no book. On the flipside, you don’t want to fill extra pages with subpar work just to increase page count. These books take time and effort, but as you can see, they are well worth the work.
Comments 16
Very cool. Glad you shared. Waiting for my matte covered ‘test’ book. I tend to order a couple copies of my test books so I can send one to Mom who doesn’t ever see anything wrong in the things I make. Yay for Moms! Maybe if they’re good enough, I might hand the extras to other friends as a sorta door prize.
Now you’ve got me thinking about multiple books from the same series of photos…never occurred to me.
Author
Oh ya. Been doing this for years. Multiple books at multiple price points for multiple audiences. It’s one of the best aspects of POD that almost no photographers ever think about. My mom thinks I’m the shit.
Really love the clean design and do like that you shot in 16 x 9….what a great book and agree — matte is the way to go.
Author
The matte is SO nice, at least for me. Simple design works when the photographs work, and some of mine do and some do not, but thankfully it’s just a sample.
After the first test book, I started looking at photos taken between Dawson City and the Arctic Circle. I dithered about the size, and the layflat option, but eventually decided, go big or go home. There’s several huge panorama photos that were begging for full exposure so I went 11×13 layflat. I was looking at it the other day, and fell in love with it all over again. A bit of text, a fair bit of white space, and those huge full spread panoramas smack readers in the eyeballs. There’s been several ‘wows!’ and lots of drooling. I second Dan. Do the book.
Author
There is something stellar about these larger book beasts, no matter how many times I see them.
dude, there are some real keepers among the frames shown here. just my humble opinion. and i’m gonna trade book my a** off in 2026.
Author
Ha, Trade Books are so damn good, and fun, and cost efficient. And now with matte……And thanks. I made a handful of images that I like.
oh and there ARE birds in the book. at least as ink on the dude’s chest… 😉
Author
Yes, good eye. That’s the only bird image in the book. A tat. And his quote was SO good.
That looks amazing, Dan! I am on my way back home from attempting a trek to Everest base camp in Nepal and hope I took a couple bangers that I can print. I may just try your latest test print combo.
Side note: In Kathmandu scooters and motorcycles outnumber cars at least 10-1. And, the rarest motorcycles I saw were Royal Enfields! That’s the first time I’ve seen one in person. They look and sound awesome!
Author
RE is awesome. And the new Himi 450 gets rave reviews, even from the geeky ADV guys. I would LOVE to trek Nepal. How was it?
That is really nice-looking test book. I did a double take on the image of the 2 gentlemen in the shade of the tower/turret. I didn’t notice the ring of the near light post, and at first glance I thought it looked like a giant had stuck 2 shovels into the sand.
Author
I like that image. And the book looks pretty good too.
Like the Chefchaouen car park, subverting classic scenes from the medina. Skirting the edges pays dividends in these images.
Author
Have always been an edge guy.