In Chris Orwig’s new book Visual Poetry , top photographers answer the same four questions.
What inspires you?
What makes a photograph good?
What character qualities should the photographer nurture and develop?
Advice for the aspiring photographer?
Find out what my answers were
What are yours? Comment here!
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Three voyages to Antarctica yielded over 250,000 exposures. Would you like to see them all? I’m kidding! I wouldn’t do that to you! Selecting only the best images has been a real challenge. Does it have graphic impact? Does it tell an important aspect of the story? Is it repeatable with variation? Is it repetitive? All good questions. For my book Antarctica I settled on 100 images. More seemed to tire viewers. Even though I’ve released more images, in the book I published fewer to make it a more effective experience. More is less. Less is more.
Here are a few images that didn’t make it into the book.
Preview or purchase the book here.
Email info@johnpaulcaponigro.com to reserve your space in my 2011 Antarctica workshop.
My book Antarctica is printed one copy at a time by Blurb. It’s the second edition with twice as many images. 100 images. 8×10″. Simple text. Heavily supported by my website.
Sometimes books include important facts about a region; my website has an extended essay collecting essential information about Antarctica; there’s no space limit on the web and everything connects to something more. Sometimes books include maps; my website has an Antarctica Google Map that you can pan and zoom, enhanced with commentary and images. Sometimes books include journals of a voyage; my website has several types of journals including highlights from three voyages and a set of live blog posts. Sometimes books include personal statements by the author; my website let’s you hear me speak. Sometimes books include recommended resources; my website has a list of recommended reading list and a set of links to the best climate change resources on the web and things you can do to help.
Did I create a website to support a book or a book to support a website? I keep thinking. Print is high resolution and low density. The web is low resolution and high density.
Websites don’t make books obsolete, but they’re certainly changing the function, sometimes the form, and more and more the production of them.
What’s left in this book is an exceptionally clean presentation of images with compelling juxtapositions and sequences in an unpowered form that you can comfortably touch, hold, share, and keep in your field of vision for extended periods of time. You live with books very differently than you live with websites. This book is worth living with.
Preview or purchase my book Antarctica here.
Interested in getting substantial information on climate change from authoritative resources?
I’ve reached out to a number of sources to compile this list of resources – the American Museum of Natural History, journalist Gary Braasch, climatologist Michael Morrison, and others.
Enjoy!
Find them here.
Blurb highlighted my alumni’s Blurb Group Book John Paul Caponigro’s Next Step Alumni Group on their blog today. Blurb’s Natalie Shahmiri asked me about the project and about my impressions of the state of books.
Here’s an excerpt.
“Books have been essential ways of sharing work for artists. Without them a majority of artists’ works would have remained invisible. Only a few people would have see them, not larger audiences. Even with the advent of the world wide web, books remain important communication and marketing tools. Printed matter offers focussed, localized, persistence while the web offers diffuse, transient, ubiquity. Books can also be the final product, special things in and of themselves.
While I will continue to work with major publishers, print on demand solutions are becoming essential tools for communicating and marketing my own work – specifically Blurb. Stay tuned to johnpaulcaponigro.com for many new Blurb books from me in the near future.”
Read the rest here.
This international juried competition has a grand prize of $25,000 and could lead to national publication for a few. All you have to do is submit your Blurb book by July 16.
Find out more here.
Blurb books now come in 6 different sizes. Hard or softcover. Standard or premium paper. You’ve got options.
Check out options and prices here.
Blurb book previews (the ones visitors can see when they visit Blurb) are Google searchable! That’s right, the text in your Blurb book preview will be picked up by Google’s search engines. Wow!
Find out more about Blurb here.
Now you can use your own graphics layout software to design books and print them on Blurb. Or, you can have someone do this for you. The point is you don’t have to use Blurb’s BookSmart software to make Blurb books anymore. Of course, your designs need to fit standard Blurb book sizes. But after that … the sky is the limit.
Find out more here.