Alex Wise Photography

With Christmas quickly approaching I pondered a small coffee table like book for close family and friends, those who appreciate my photography the most. I wanted something that was relatively cheap but also allowed free control of what the pages looked like, none of these tacky themes designed for people creating a holiday book they will never look at again.

I looked around and there was quite a few options getting around, Lulu seemed quite popular and I had received a book from there before when I was featured in U&I magazine. The quality wasn’t amazing but it was good enough. But then there were other options that I would have to consider like memento, Asuka, blurb and another which I had heard about on a forum but many were complaining the turn around times were hopeless. I decided to pick Lulu in the end because I thought I could print a 20page photobook for not much damage, around $16 I believe. But then when I was uploading my pages, the system wasn’t much and only allowed the user to use the pre-defined themes, argh! I got in touch with live help and they recommended creating my own paper based book but apparently the print quality is not as good as the photobook, whether this is true or not I don’t know. The price of my book ended up being $9.50 for 36 pages whilst I think a photobook was around $16 for 20 pages. Maybe I had just snatched myself a bargain and they were encouraging me to go the more expensive option so I spend more? Or maybe they were right and I was about to purchase 15 books that looked garbage. Time would soon tell..

I set off designing my book which was much more tedious then I ever imagined. Should I have text about each location? Should I discuss technical data of each image? What colours should I use? Things I never really bothered to think about before. However in the end it was quite easy as my book was made purposely for close friends and family who aren’t interested in the technical data and will possibly recognise most locations anyhow. I had a few ideas for colours but used a website that I had bookmarked sometime ago called colourlovers. This website is great and I love the different colour palettes which users can submit. I knew I wanted to use a gray/black palette but wanted a nice bright colour to compliment. In the end I decided on this palette as the green really grabbed me and seemed to work well with the final product.

Colours and a rough but simple layout design was in my head so it was time to start choosing images. With most of my work being in portrait orientation I didn’t really think twice about going portrait, landscape would of been great for panoramic but portrait was the sure option. Initially I wanted to leave photo quotes on pages but in the limited it to just a couple as I didn’t want it to get overly corny and only wanted to use the ones that actually mean something to me. If this book was going to be selling in book shops I would of made the design dramatically different, I was amazed of the designs on deviantart but such designs for this small book were un-necessary plus I lacked the skill to even do it

Below is a section of pages which have been included, as you can see I opted to use a landscape image which didn’t really fit the orientation of the book but being one of my favourite shots, I had to work it in somehow.

Click for bigger versions

Front and back covers

The name of the book just felt right, F/18 is such a common range for me when shooting and it resembles my work. I was thinking of names like moments in time or other cliché things, but they all had been done to death and didn’t grab me as much as F/18 did. This was decided and the cover and back were designed to be simple and to the point.

Being a international customer of lulu, one thing that did appeal most was the fact that shipping was well priced. If I order one book then it costs around $6(USD) shipping which is great. In the end I ordered a quantity of 15 which worked out around $60 for shipping. To get a saving on the quantity ordered, I would of had to order around 25~ books to gain a 30-40 cent discount per order. It was too big of risk to make, I wasn’t sure if the books were even going to look good nor do I have that many close friends to give them to haha.

I lodged my order on the 27th of November and was warned that I may not receive my books in time for Christmas. I was a little concerned but through reading the faq of lulu it seems that a book takes 3-4 business days to be printed then another 10-15 days to be delivered internationally through their standard mail system. I could of selected a express delivery but instead of paying $6 for a individual book, I was looking at $65 so I’m not sure I’d like to see how much 15 would cost. But this delivery is quick and is supposed to be 3-4 days delivery time. Not bad! But expensive.

The book did arrive in time for Christmas (14th December) just enough time to post books out for people.

I’m happy with how the books turned out and my only disappointments are more on my own end with I wish I perhaps set certain things out differently but that’s just self nitpicking. My shots don’t really do the cover or back much justice with the ambient light in the room being quite poor so I used the flash and bounced it off the roof which also didn’t help either oops. For the price they cost me (15~usd inc shipping) is quite cheap really and I’m happy with the finished product. They will serve as a great gift to give to friends and family but wouldn’t be something that I would be putting in a book store. Things I would consider changing next time would be: greater emphasis on design, more text for those interested of locations, a biography and perhaps a few other minor adjustments. All in all I’m happy! Now time to get some books out in the mail in time for Christmas.