Japan Photobook

I've finished the photobook and it has arrived. I am a little dissappointed with the finish but not so much as to complain to Cewe-Photoworld who produced it. Some pages show faint magenta and green banding across the whole page and the amount of sharpening they have used is more than I would have liked (my images are unsharpened for Alamy and Cewe don't give you control over it - rightly, as you can't judge it unless you know the printer they are using)

Before I archived the original files I took screenshots of the book layout in order to show a preview of it to my friends. Here are some highlights (below - or watch the slideshow)...the real thing runs to 84 pages! Most of the full page bleeds are available on Alamy in my portfolio, here.

I chose the XL Picture Hardcover book and so these double-page spreads are 60cm wide, the quality of the D300 images is fabulous, and it especially shines in some of the night shots which were all shot handheld at up to 1600 ISO with the wonderful 16-85 Nikkor VR lens (except for the A-bomb dome which was one of only two occasions that the tripod got used).

P.S. I'm still keywording the Japan images, but as of this afternoon, I will have 500 images live on Alamy, hooray!

Excited...then blackout

This year has been a year of blackouts in our street. This isn't normal, this isn't expected, I'm a little embarrassed to say that we take power for granted in the UK.

This month has been a month of blackouts in our street. We've woken up to my alarm going off, and realised that Anna's won't be. Typically we've lost 5-10 hours of power once a week.

Yesterday it finally broke. I got home in a state of excitement as my D300 arrived at work and I wanted to take pictures and read the manual and the weather was terrible, black clouds, squally rain and..no power. Five minutes before I arrived home the power went off and it didn't return until the small hours of this morning. Apparently they had to dig up the road (not our road strangely - even though only our road was affected) in the middle of the night. Hopefully they've fixed it once and for all.



Close-up of the pages of a book 5/6


So after we popped out for dinner, I managed to read 50 pages of the 427 page D300 manual...yes 427 pages. This thing is more powerful than the laptop I'm writing on. It literally wants to take pictures for you. It is a piece of art too, the screen on the back, the viewfinder, the live view and the feel of the photos it produces. It is honestly like rediscovering professional photography again. For the first time I've found a camera which makes everything look better than it really is.

Of course I'm sure I can find a way to take boring pictures, after all, that's what I do. Until I get back home I won't be able to show off any pictures, but this camera will get me shooting again, even if I fail QC (which I'm sure I'll manage), I won't care because I can shoot landscapes with this camera...a subject which was off limits for stock at 6MP.