I have always wanted to print a book of my work that I could be satisfied with. When I think of art books I envision each page to be a representation of a print that I would make. So many self publishers fall short of this goal and really don’t care about the quality of each page, but more so the quantity of books they can get through their printers which aren’t usually calibrated frequently. When the printers aren’t calibrated frequently this causes each book to be printed different from the next which could be one of the issues, but there are several. As you can see on my site I sell a book printed by Blurb. I’ll be taking that down and “discontinuing” sales of DISCONTINUde as the quality is not up to my standards. They missed my deep blacks in ALL of my prints. There is no detail. It’s just black. One of the prints I’m attaching in this posting … Achilles Knee (model, Stephanie Anne)… none of the trees to the left of the picture even show up in the book. They are just a black blob, as are each of the prints in the book. And that’s a shame because the size of the book is really cute and square (5×5) like my photos and I wanted it to be a nice little book one could keep. And many of my sepia toned images turned green. So, even if I used a little color to try and get their printers to behave in a manner that would look good for my prints, nothing worked. I even calibrated Photoshop to use their color calibration. It was really disappointing. This was also to be a book that they would showcase at an event so people could see the quality of their work. It was so disappointing for me that I told them they couldn’t showcase my book. I spent days and weeks putting that book together too.
Achilles Knee - ©2007 Zoe Wiseman - model: Stephanie Anne
A&I had printed a couple of my photographs in their books for group shows they had which I was a part of, and both of my photographs looked excellent inside of Nude X and I Spy With My Plastic Eye. When asked to do a show of my work and a book, I went into the book making process with a lot more optimism and was not sorry for it. Creating a book is a lot of work. It’s much more than just slapping an image on a page. It takes time to create a flow, work out where you need to put type, what font to use, which image should represent each theme. So when you spend that much effort to layout and creating an art piece with your photography and then paying for it, it’s so nice when it all comes out perfect. My book Fiat Lux is beautiful. And I’m not tooting my own horn or A&I’s because they gave me a show. I’m blunt… if something sucks I usually say so straight away. I’m not getting paid to say this either. They aren’t sponsoring me, I’m paying for my own publishing. They really do care about quality and it’s obvious that they all enjoy seeing a great product come from their lab. In fact, I’m sure they would be embarrassed if something subpar ever exited the building.
I’m very excited for people to see and purchase this book during my opening… and will not hesitate to add my signature to it because it is something I definitely approve of. When I held it for the first time yesterday, I turned into a giggly little girl. See you all next Thursday the 18th!
Fiat Lux - fine art nudes by zoe wiseman
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Zoe Wiseman Modeling
Zoe Wiseman