Retrospective

By now, I have been resting from all kind of photography for a week, and I’m actually still tired from the picture editing part of it. I am shooting, though, without thinking of it. Will be interesting to later see what I actually have captured. I will anyway try to write down a few words about this experience, making a photo book as a SoFoBoMo project.

The project that last for a month took actually longer time. I read about it in TOP, this was late February. By March the 6th I had decided on giving it a try and signed myself up. Five days later I had an idea of a subject to work with. The thinking process during these days were merely brainstorming and I focused on ideas that could be realised in the town where I live. I carried all ideas in my head; no structured work her, no no… Probably I lost one or two on the journey because of this, but this is how I work and as long as it comes out something from it I’m happy with it.

Keep it simple

Two stories I remember I had on my mind were:

• Making a story about the all but glory pizza restaurants that actually exists in the outskirts of this little town
• Making a story about exciting backyards that hides behind the street houses in this medieval town

I still consider doing the latter story, to which I have been shooting for many years already. The only obstacle is that I lack a really good idea of what story to tell, and if I hadn’t been able to come up with something good this far, how could I expect to do that and making all photographs within a month?  Completely over the top. I decided on the Bicycle theme since I could relate to it rather strongly and it was easy to comprehend the story in my head. There are also an endless number of bicycles in this area, making the photographing phase very straightforward. If it is something I learnt over the years, keep it simple comes to my mind first. You can always refine later in life, if you feel a desire for it. I know I would not do it.

Now, I entered idle mode and didn’t think much of the project until late April. Before the actual project start, I used a few of my lunch breaks to visit and memorize different places where the likelihood was good  that there would be lots of bicycles when I needed them. I also started some initial work in learning how InDesign works. Since I didn’t have the story in place, and not knew much about how the pictures will look when ready processed, I couldn’t do any trial layouts.  I used a blank Blurb 13″ x 11″ template for the learning process.

Find something to say

I actually wanted to proceed with this subject a little bit longer than I eventually did. Luckily, I had lots to do with other things in my life, making it easy to cut down on ambition very early in the process. By a week of photographing, I had some 300 pictures after a first sort. Now what? I actually had these 300 pictures another two weeks into the project. Since there were so many, none was processed. I didn’t want to spend valuable time processing pictures I didn’t want at the end of the day.

But I came up with an idea. From having an idea of capturing how the personality of bicycle owners are reflected in their bicycles, and how these bicycles changes depending on where in life you are, I decided to boil it down to a story about the bicycles and how these can be recycled to reflect different owners. From having seeing it in one direction, I changed the viewpoint and started seeing it in the other direction. Now, it became easy to write down a short story. Having a rough draft at hand, it was immensely easier to select which pictures to proceed with. The layout, that is, how I wanted to distribute pictures over the book pages, came much easier, as well. I kept it easy, there were no time for fancy graphical layout. It all fell in place while I had the story in place.

Make a shooting list

Photography-wise I learnt a few things:

• Firstly, it was not a very good idea to use two such different lenses as the Normal lens and the Lensbaby without having that story in place. After have had the story and the general layout done, I would have liked to have pictures made with one type of lens on each spread.
• Secondly, the pictures should have been taken from perspectives that took advantage of the spread page layout. The 3+1 pictures I opened with in each section should as well have been shot with this spread layout in mind, for instance three softly detaild pictures on the left page, and one Lensbaby picture on the right page, the latter with the blur on the left side. A shooting list, or a general list of types of images I want and how they roughly shall align would have been handy to have at hand.
• Thirdly, I also learnt that while toning pictures individually is the most natural thing to do, this may make the page spreads to look really odd. A cold blue toned picture on one side and a warm sepia toned one on the other doesn’t align very well. I made individual tonings on all my pictures, but had to change this with only two days left on my project. It didn’t look well at all, not to me, anyway.

Start early

So, would I do this again? Even recommend someone else to do it? Definitely yes. I enjoyed it a lot. Also, I would encourage anybody to start the blogging well ahead of the actual starting date for the project. This way, you may get a chance to discuss ideas during the important pre-phase, when you are thinking up what to do and how to do it – all the planning, which in my book is a big part of the sofobomo work but thankfully not included in the fuzzy month. You might even get to know new friends!

Actually, the SoFoBoMo lifecycle spans over a year. You could start next year’s project tomorrow, if you want to. I don’t, but I sure hope I want to make another book next year. Until then, thanks all SoFoBoMoers that one way or another have inspired me in this project. Mostly, thanks to Paul Butzi for coming up with this grand idea in the first place and making all this possible by the web site he created to leverage the idea.