I had a book published!

Click the photo below to see large size – that is my recently published photo book! Fresh off the press! My book! Pictures don’t lie do they?

…so what if it is just me publishing me – I still had a book published!

I find while travelling and shooting that people I meet are always very interested in seeing my work; last time I decided that I should bring some sort of mini portfolio with me and might even make some sales that way. So I simply used one of the online ‘create your own photobook’ services to print a compact portfolio book for travelling. I used the company MyPhotoBook as I had read great things about them and they offered a small 15×20 size book, perfect for travelling. Blurb.com is another service getting good reviews, but they didn’t have the compact book I wanted.

See photo on the right for some sample pages (and why I’ll never make a living doing product photography. I couldn’t light a scene to safe my life, I depend on the sun). Print quality is actually quite good and the paper is very nice. Quite heavy paper with a nice semi-gloss finish. Colours are spot-on, for 4-colour press printing I am actually very impressed by how accurate the colours are. The prints could be sharper though, perhaps due to the small size of the photos.

My book! Even though it’s me publishing me it’s still rather nice to browse my own book! Certainly inspires me to print a much larger book – and one day see my books in a bookshop with customers queuing round the block! Hey it could happen. Well, I can dream anyway!

Wannabe Bruce Chatwin with a Moleskine

I need to invent a fancy theme for posts like these, something like Off-Topic Wednesdays (it is Wednesday today isn’t it? Me and time have a weird relationship) but for now this’ll do:

It’s off-topic day, not about my photography for a change!

I live, eat and breathe photography but also love writing and I write a lot when I travel. As I get ready to embark on another photo trip to Australia the travel bug gets me. I long for travel, long for doing photography all the time every day in new locations every day in an alien yet familiar outback landscape on the other side of the world. Eternal Restlessness.

The closer I get to travelling the more travel novels I read. I am somewhat strangely obsessed with everything Bruce Chatwin at the moment after having re-read his novel Songlines twice in one week. I forgot what a masterpiece of literature that book is and how good a writer he was. Also quite a fascinating character! I am presently reading the biography and a few of his other novels.

I love writing while travelling. I do write at other times but nowhere near as much. The first few times I travelled abroad I wrote in classic diary style, “I did this, I went there, I saw that” etc. Mind-numbingly boring to read now! But the last many notebooks are written travel story style with a mix of thoughts, reflections, observations, history, humour and anecdotes. Trying to put the reader inside my head (scary place!) Still boring probably but at least somewhat different! I now write in the gorgeous Moleskine notebooks of course, the sure sign of someone desperately trying to be creative. I’m no Bruce Chatwin but hey, I use the same notebooks he did!

On the right is a photo of the travel notebooks I have written so far. After I began blogging not only do the notebooks have to suffer my words but so do the internet as my Travelog page demonstrates! Who knows, some of my old stories buried in the notebooks on the right might make it online someday. Or someday when my photography makes me rich and famous I can publish these! Maybe not, I reckon I should stick to photography!

PS.
Moleskine. It’s pronounced Mol-e-skin-a if you feel like attempting some Italian (the company is Italian).

My Copenhagen – Mit København

I love living in Copenhagen (København to use the actual name), it is a beautiful and amazing multi-cultural city. As much as I am obsessed with Australia I think being away for 10 weeks made me realize how much I like living here (it’s just too bloody cold, need a bit of global warming in Denmark!) I love that I can just jump on my bicycle on a cold November Monday afternoon and shoot  cityscapes by the lakes:

Lake Peblinge and three ducks

I love Copenhagen but absolutely despise Winter, the cold, the darkness, the snow. I miss Australia and the heat. I have to admit though that the light and the clouds at this time of year can be absolutely fantastic, so at least Winter in Copenhagen does produce some nice photo opportunities.

In my “My Copenhagen” gallery I am trying to show you Copenhagen in a different light, Copenhagen like you have not seen it before. Compared to shooting photos while travelling I have the luxury at home to wait for just the right conditions, the right light and clouds etc. I feel the My Copenhagen gallery probably is the best of my work and defines me as a photographer. One of my plans is to one day have a “My Copenhagen” photo book published. There could be a market for that I reckon, I haven’t seen any good Copenhagen photo books yet. With a bit of luck and a lot of work my book could be under every Christmas tree in 2008! Imagine a high quality book of immaculately printed Copenhagen cityscapes like this one:

Lake Peblinge reflections

You would definitely want to buy this book, wouldn’t you?