Crafting a Luxury Photo Book With My 2020 Landscape Photographs
Sometimes you just need to produce something special with your photographs. In this video, I select my best landscape photographs from 2020 and design a rather luxurious photo book.
Taking the Positives from 2020
Let’s face it, 2020 wasn’t exactly a stellar year. Everyone’s photography suffered in some way but that pales in comparison to the wider problems the pandemic brought. However, I’m a half glass full kind of person so I will always try and look for the positives. Despite missing some important photographic events through the year, I was still surprised by the number of good images that I had captured during 2020.
At the start of 2020 I made the commitment to myself that I would create a photo book of my images at the end of each year. I was inspired to do this after I created my first Saal Digital photo book which was a retrospective look at the previous 10 years of my landscape photography. You can see how I went about that in this blog post.
Looking at the book was such a wonderful experience, much in the same way that viewing an individual print is such a positive thing to do. That experience stuck with me for 2020, so when 2021 rolled around I got to work on creating my Portfolio 2020 book. As before I decided to have it printed by Saal Digital but this time I went the extra mile and added something a bit special.
You can find out all about my Portfolio 2020 book, and the extra item I ordered in the video below.
Do you create your own photo books? Has this video inspired you to do something similar? Let me know in the comments below.
Celebrate YOUR Photography by Creating a Landscape Photography Calendar
I want to inspire you to celebrate YOUR photography in 2021 creating your very own landscape photography calendar. I'll take you through the process of how I created my calendar, share my thoughts on the final product and tell you why you should also make one.
A New Photography Project
Not all photography projects need to be about going out and capturing new images. Some projects can be about celebrating the images that you already have in your library. There are many ways to do this, but I think one of the most rewarding things to do is to make prints of your photographs. Why spend all that time (and probably money) capturing wonderful photographs for them to end up sitting on a hard drive somewhere.
I’ve printed my photographs in a variety of different ways from single prints, home galleries and by creating a book. It was while creating the book that I had the idea of making a calendar. I was using the services of Saal Digital to create my book when I noticed that they also printed calendars and so I made a note to make one towards the end of the year.
Celebrate YOUR Photography
As the end of 2020 approach, I decided it was time to start that project to create a calendar. The idea of creating a calendar was exciting and I thought that if I were excited then I was sure other people would feel the same. Not excited about my calendar that is, but excited about the idea of creating YOUR own calendar! What better way to celebrate your photography than by creating a calendar?
So, in the video below I share with you the process of how I created my calendar with Saal Digital. The purpose of the video isn’t to sell you my calendar but to inspire you to create one yourself! Aside from selecting which 12 images to include in the calendar, the process of putting it together is relatively straight forward. What better way to travel through each month of 2021 by marveling at one of your own images!
A Very Limited Edition
While I have mentioned that I used Saal Digital to create my calendar, I did pay for my own calendars. It’s also not my goal to sell my calendars. This is very much a personal project for me. While I didn’t order hundreds of calendars, I did order two. One is for me to hang on my wall and the other is to giveaway to someone like you. Someone in my community. Details of how you can win this very limited edition calendar are all in the video.
I’ll be doing another photography publishing project early next year so stay tuned to the blog!
Creating My Biggest Ever Landscape Photography Book
In the blog this week, I create my BIGGEST ever landscape photography book! This retrospective look at my photography from the last decade takes over one hundred of my favourite landscape photographs and publishes them in one big book.
Creating Photo Books
If you’ve been reading my blog for a while or watching my YouTube channel, you’ll know how important it is for me to create something physical from my photographs. For me, the photographic process isn’t complete until I have made a print. I just love printing! You can beat the experience of watching one of your images take physical form.
Printing individual images for me is quick, easy, and reasonably inexpensive. I can also be spontaneous with my decision to print a photograph. Photography books are much more of a commitment, both in terms of preparation, time, and cost. It’s not that I’ve necessarily shied away from creating a book, it’s just that I’ve never felt the need.
That was all true until earlier this year when I created my first landscape photography book using the images that I’d captured from the Isle of Skye the year before. It was fantastic to see a collection of my images in a book. It hasn’t changed my attitude towards printing at home but it has given me another way to output my photography. I could definitely see the benefit of printing a collection of images in a book format. There is something even more permanent and physical with a book.
This Is Fun, Let’s Do Another
After my experience of creating my book of Skye photographs, I knew I would want to create another book at some point. I wasn’t planning to do one so soon but then I saw an advert from Saal Digital UK offering a £100 voucher against the cost of one of their Professional Line books. I’d never used Saal before and I thought this would be a great opportunity to not only try their services but also to create another book. I applied for the voucher and was incredibly pleased when my application was accepted. (I will add that the voucher came with no conditions other than a use-by date.)
From the outset, I knew this was going to be a much bigger book than my last one. I wasn’t exactly sure of the scope to start with, and it took me a little while to get myself started, but once I was going it turned out to be a fantastic project.
Like I did with my Skye book I decided to make a video of my experience of creating this book. In the video, I talk about how I selected my photographs, my experience of using the Saal designer software and my thoughts on the final printed book. You can check out the video below:
Will I Do Another?
There’s no doubt that having photography books printed can be a costly exercise, especially if you are just printing one book for personal use but I do firmly believe it is worth doing. With that in mind, I have made a personal commitment to producing another book.
Unless anything else comes up between now and the end of the year that requires a book, my next book will feature my best or favourite photographs from 2020. If that book turns out to be a positive experience it will be something, I will want to do every year. I’m also going to look at some of the additional options that Saal offer such as gift boxes, different covers and paper types. I will, of course, be creating a video for that so you can share the experience with me.
I hope you enjoyed this video and blog post. Do you create your own photography books? Do you sell your books? Let me know in the comments below.
Your Photos Matter - Create a Photo Book
I completely forgot about a collection of images I had so I decided to do something with them!
Don’t Forget to Publish Your Photos!
In October of last year, I went on a photography bucket list trip to the Isle of Skye. This wasn’t a last-minute trip but one that I had probably started to organise some 18 months prior to departure. Over that 18 month period, I had a lot of time to get excited about the trip. Needless to say that when the trip did finally come around my levels of excitement were through the roof.
With all that planning and excitement I find it odd that I left the photographs I captured just sitting on my hard drive. What was the point in spending all that time and money on capturing these images and doing nothing with them! So I decided the best and most interesting way to publish these photographs was with a photo book. If you a regular reader of the blog you’ll know how keen I am on creating something physical from my photographs. This time though, rather than print them myself I would create a photo book.
You can see how I went about it in the video below:
I hope you enjoyed the video and it has inspired you to dig about your catalogue of images, print some of them, or even create a photo book yourself. If you do, please let me know in the comments below.
My Isle of Skye Photographs
I hope you enjoy the collection of photographs that I placed in my book. Just click on a thumbnail to view the image full screen and see all the shooting information.
My Year Long Landscape Photography Project on Dartmoor
What happens when you photograph the same location for a year? In the blog this week I share with you the results of my year-long landscape photography project on Dartmoor.
One Year, One Location, Twelve Photographs
I’m going to keep this blog post really short as everything I would talk about here is contained in the video below. So rather than write a lot of text here I hope you’ll be able to find the time to watch my longest ever landscape photography video. I’ve actually tried to keep it as short as I can, but the video does contain a year’s worth of work so I hope you can excuse the length. So grab yourself a coffee or a drink and enjoy!
I do hope you enjoyed the video. Have you ever undertaken a similar project? Which image was your favourite? Please let me know in the comments below.
My Emsworthy Collection
Finally, here are all the photographs I took during the project and that you saw in the video. If you want to see the technical information for a photograph just click on it.
