A Book of Photographs

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A few weeks ago after I posted "Festive Agriculture", friend and reader rappel, who has made many artist books, suggested that I put together a book of the series of photos that I took on Vermont farms in 2004 and 2005. The twenty-five images are of farm machinery and buildings, cropped closely to highlight abstract qualities of design and color, though narrative and humor creep in too. (and do you notice the color relationship with Ellsworth Kelly?)

It's now very easy to self publish a book with print on demand technology; using InDesign, I did a page layout with the photos, then made a PDF which I uploaded to lulu.com. The cover was made separately in Photoshop. Then I waited for 10 days after ordering a book, which came yesterday. What a treat! it came out looking very good, which was a bit of a surprise to me.

There's something wonderful about holding a book in the hand; an image inside it has more visual weight than when it is online. I love the digital universe and love blogging, but it is a different form from a book, just as a book is different from a magazine. There is immediacy in blogging; you write a post, then another, and as you write new posts previous ones recede in time and in memory. A book approaches timelessness, and a pile of books on a shelf is a gathered treasure.