I wrote yesterday about my publishing woes with blurb. After several emails with their customer support explaining the issue they acknowledged it, recommended I use the values their software BookSmart uses and promised to fix their documentation. These are excerpts from two of those emails.

… Thanks for your message. Please go by the information you found when using your booksmart software, as it should be the most reliable. This means that you will need to re-size your images, sorry about that.
… Thanks for this information. We will soon be updating all of this information, as we have received a few other complaints. We apologize for any confusion caused.

I hope they do. It will save time and pain for a lot of people in the future.

If you follow some of the most prolific SoFoBoMoers like Paul Butzi or Gordon McGregor you’ll notice a common pattern. None of the Publish On Demand providers is perfect. Paul has written about several of them here, about Akusa books here, Blurb here, CreateSpace here. He, like Gordon ended up using blurb, which probably are the best of them all. In the past I had had a good experience with them too with my Memories of Africa book and it’s probably the one I’ll use too. It’s reasonable priced, the print quality is as good or better than any of the others and the customer service is not too bad.

But of course I also have my gripes with blurb. An area they still haven’t fixed and that has created unnecessary confusion, for me, and if you read their forums for a lot of people is the inconsistence between the information they have published and their software BookSmart regarding page and image sizes suitable for double spread and full bleed pages.

Following their published information for page sizes for 10×8 landscape books and their recommended in their Blurberati blog here:

For Standard Landscape 10×8 pages:
9.6 inches wide by 8.24 inches high
24.4 x 20.9 cm

If you do the math at their recommended 300DPI the resulting images are
2880×2472.

I used the useful templates from The Art Of Engineering here, that were made following those measurements and processed all my images to that size. Imagine my surprise when I started putting them in their BookSmart application (v1.9.5) and found out that for the same size book their software requires images that are 2888×2475!. Sure, you might say the discrepancy is small, (a mere 1.3 millimeters in width and page 0.3 mm in height) but hey! all my images got resized and I don’t trust their software to do a good job resampling and resizing and I’d rather do that on Photoshop myself.

So now it’s back to the drawing board, err …, Photoshop, and redo all my pages, not fun.

Nick is a really fun and intelligent kid, but, like all kids, so full of energy that it was hard to get him to be quiet for a few seconds to take his portrait. He was making all kind of funny faces and chatting at the same time. I was thinking on the portrait that I just had taken of Wei and wanted Nick to have a pose that would match Wei’s for the triptych. I asked him to sit cross legged and finally I had the pose I wanted. Lighting here is cross lighting with flashes reflected on umbrellas on either side of the camera. I didn’t want to have 2 shadows behind Nick so I reduced the left flash power by a f-stop or so.

After the session was done Nick showed me a thing or two about playing the Nintendo Wii.

If it hadn’t been for Wei and Jasmine I wouldn’t have made my SoFoBoMo deadline. Some of my friends that were lined up for some of the shoots and that I had scheduled with enough time in advance canceled or had to reschedule, not their fault but of those strangers that kept either getting cold feet or allowing their busy lives to interfere with my project (just joking) and canceled on them! So, in an almost state of panic I sent an email to Wei, Jasmine and Connie asking them to help me out. Well, not only did they agree but Wei and Jasmine invited their neighbors to be my strangers, even for Connie!

Wei’s dad passed away after a very brave fight against cancer last year and we wanted to pay homage to him. I really like Wei’s Zen-like pose holding his dad’s portrait.

I used two flashes with umbrellas on either side of Wei. We were getting some reflections on the glass until Wei had the genial idea, let’s take the glass off the frame! It worked like a charm.

The number of projects at sofobomo.org keep growing and growing and I am amazed at the quality of the books being produced. Check them if you have the time. Last week the number of visitors to this blog soared to an all time maximum, 171 visits, in one day May 5th. I was a bit baffled until I found out the reason. Gordon McGregor, of PhotoExpressions fame, and one of the first to finish his SoFoBoMo book had posted an article about SoFoBoMo on The Online Photographer, and the rest is history.

I mentioned yesterday Jasmine’s wonderful Japanese pizza, well, wonder no more, here it is in all its glory. The only final touch missing is the thick, syrupy, sweet soy sauce. Yummy!

Susan is Peter’s lovely wife. At first she felt a little bit uncomfortable and didn’t know what to do. Fortunately for her, she is one of those really photogenic people. Her very expressive face always have a ready smile so I wasn’t too worried. I knew that after a while she would forget the camera and she would let her natural self to come out. One of the techniques I learned during this project working with people is that after a while, especially if the session takes a while they can’t keep their guard up all the time and eventually they let go. It’s what I would call portrait by attrition. There is a fine line though, you don’t want your subjects to be tired, or bored or worse, mad at you.  I read somewhere that a famous photographer, whose name I can’t recall, back in the days of film used to start his sessions with no film in his camera. He would go through the motions for 10 minutes just chatting and shooting away without using film. After that he would load the camera and start the real session, his subjects, now at ease, none the wiser. With digital that’s not necessary anymore, and I have found that in some cases the best image is in those first 10 minutes.

Fudge, their beautiful and energetic ball of fur helped Susan forget she was in front of the camera and I took this candid of both of them. Lighting was a flash with umbrella on camera right. The one on camera left didn’t fire so I had to bring some of the shadows back up in Photoshop. Kudos to the Imacon 16bit files for being so forgiving.

Jasmine is a fabulous cook. Although we took some standard, sitting-on-the-couch type of portraits she really wanted her portrait to be taking while cooking. Here she is preparing a Japanese pizza (that’s what she called it) that was absolutely delicious. The base was not made out of bread but out of sliced vegetables and it wasn’t baked but fried. The smells coming from the kitchen were so good that I got a bit sloppy in my photography. I didn’t pay attention to the window behind her and the reflection the flash might (and did) cause. When I had the flash (with diffuser) on camera right it would show up reflected in the windows. Fortunately I also took some of the shots with flash on camera left and these came out great. I ate too much of the pizza she prepared it’s no wonder they all kicked my butt at the Wii, well that and the fact that it was my first time playing.

As I mentioned before Peter hadn’t tried wushu before but he sure looked the part when Connie asked him to strike some of the poses. We didn’t have much time for this photo session because I had two more to go and the sun had started to set. I took a couple of others in which Connie is doing the wheel that are pretty impressive too.

This was Peter first encounter with wushu other than the Jet Li or Jackie Chan movies he had seen and he handled it with grace and aplomb. He seems to be a natural at this. He pretty much nailed the pose we asked him to do. Of course, he didn’t know we were going to ask him this. He, innocently, thought we were going to do regular portraits and  have dinner afterwards. But I’m sure he would have been so accommodating even if he had known in advance. He and his family were very gracious and a pleasure to meet. And we had a lot of fun playing with the Wii afterwards.

Connie is a great dancer, an accomplished researcher in the area of stem cell research and a fearsome wushu warrior. She carries several swords and spears in his car at all times and she can kick your butt into oblivion with any of her weapons or with her bare hands. Fortunately, she’s a sweetheart and a very fun woman. The day of the shoot the only weapons we got to handle were the Wiimotes at Wei’s place. She got to kick my butt using those too. In my defense I’d say that my belly was full thanks to the great dinner Jasmine prepared for us and my reflexes weren’t as sharp as they usually are (I wish).

Now that the photo book is done I can get back to sleeping 8 hours a day. It’s been a fun ride but it sure has been challenging balancing a demanding full time job with a demanding full time photo book project. I haven’t had a chance to present all the selected photos before my time was up so I will continue doing that in the coming days although you can see the finished product here.

This is the first version of the book Two Degrees Of Separation in PDF form. Note, it’s a big file to download, 32Mb, and my server is a bit slow.

I still have a few days to make final adjustments if I get any feedback. Enjoy.

I had the book’s layout figured out and decided since the beginning of the project. But I had never thought about the book cover. After seeing Gordon McGregor struggling with the cover for his book, here and here, I started to fret and freak out. The book cover was something I hadn’t thought much about. I had the book pretty much finished two days ago but I’m still undecided about the cover. And this is not helping. I have narrowed it down to these two.

I think, I’m going to go with one of them and hope for the best. I still have a couple of days left before making the final decision. So if you have any suggestions I’ll be more than happy to hear them.

The official SoFoBoMo website is up and running thanks to Paul Butzi. Check out other projects and finished books.

I had never met Ana Paula before the day of the photo shoot but she was a joy to work with. Not only is she a Brazilian brainiac beauty but she looked so comfortable in front of the camera that I didn’t have to do much, just f8 and be there. As our session progressed I found out that she had had some modeling experience before and it certainly showed. Her poise, easiness and absolute control in front of the lens was truly a pleasure to watch and work with.

I used a more standard lighting here with a main flash reflected 45 degrees at camera left and a secondary flash, also reflected but between 1/2 and 1/4 of main 45 degrees at camera right. There was also a small flash pointing to the wall behind the screen.

I’ve known Martina for a long time and, again, due to our busy lives and schedules I hadn’t seen her in quite a while. This project helped us to reconnect again. I wanted to work on my lighting skills on interiors so most of the photos were taking inside her house. This is probably one of the most difficult shots I had to do.  For starters I wanted to show the candles lit so I first measured them with ambient light. Even with the lens wide open I was forced to use very low shutter speed. I had to mount the camera on a tripod. Next came lighting Martina, without overpowering the candles and giving the bars some dimension. She has gorgeous blond hair so I knew I had to use some kick light for that. In order to illuminate her hair and the bars I used a flash reflected on an umbrella situated on Martina’s left side and a bit behind (feathered light). Main light was another flash with a soft diffuser situated on Martina’s right. This is another example of cross lighting. If you follow the Strobist blog (which you should if you want to learn all about light) you could have figured this yourself by noticing how the bars are lit. On the left the light is soft (diffused) on the right the light is brighter providing the contrast. I had to ask her to sit very still in order to avoid any movement due to the slow shutter speed. The flashes also helped to freeze her in place.

I had to interrupt the SoFoBoMo stream of photos just to mention Miguel’s post When photography becomes a business . He hit the nail on the head of why I don’t want to spend any time promoting my “art” or craft. I’d rather spend my time taking photos. But I admire those that pursuit their artistic passion against all odds. Kudos to them. So, to all my friends that ask me this question again and again, go read Miguel’s post.

More goofing off with antiques and more flash misfires. I didn’t realize the batteries were running out on my flashes so I had a really bad run of dark photos or photos in which only one of the flashes fired. The dark ones are totally useless, the ones with only one flash can’t be salvaged either. Luckily, this one came out good. Both flashes, the main one behind Christa and the secondary one at 1/2 power on camera left worked this time.

After this, we had a nice chat where I was able to take some more candid shots and we had a wonderful dinner, that Christa, graciously prepared for us.  I think for Christmas I’m going to ask for a battery pack for my flashes so I don’t have to rely on AAA batteries. Waiting for the flashes to recycle has become a bit of a drag during the photo shoots.

Ian has been leading a book reading club that Christa has been part of for many years and when she got back in the area she rejoined the club. Although he plays an instrument, the trombone isn’t it. And this one had seen better times too. But hey, as a prop it works great. He tried to play but he got winded pretty fast so we had to resort to make believe. I asked him to look like he was playing but without really doing it. And he played the part perfectly. The room we were shooting at wasn’t too big to begin with and it was full of stuff from the past century so I resorted to using a wide angle lens. Lighting was with umbrella with full  flash on camera right and a bit behind Ian and a flash to 1/2 with diffuser on camera left in front and placed low.

Christa is another of those beautiful braniac friends of mine. She was gone, to Michigan of all places, for five years to do her PhD. She’s back in the area and it was great that she agreed to participate because I knew it was going to be different. Christa is one of those rare people, razor sharp smart, fun, funny and goofy and you never know what she’s going to do to surprise you. She happens to be living at a house owned by an antique dealer and we had all kind of props to work with. So of course we had to try the old phone, and the musical instruments and the mannequins, and … well, you get the idea. There was so much old stuff that our senses were overwhelmed. And of course, I have quite a few goofy poses but this one, albeit not too goofy, is the one I like the most. It shows her unflinching joie de vivre.

Lighting was an umbrella to camera left and a flash behind Christa, meant to illuminate the background, that didn’t fire. Oh well,  this will have to do.

We really liked the red train. It was fun and a great photo background. This is my absolute favorite photo from this shoot. It was a pity that I messed it up so badly. For starters, I had left my Pocket Wizards in the car, parked near another playground and very far away from the one we were taking the pictures so I couldn’t use any lights to illuminate the interior of the train. I didn’t want to use front flash because the red paint was a bit reflective and the flash would have have shown as a white nasty white blob in the middle of the picture, not pretty. I had to use natural lighting but because the train was in shadow that forced me to use a fast aperture and therefore I botched the focus. Jordan is in focus but Roberta isn’t. Although both for the size on the web and for the size the print is going to have in the book I can probably get away with it and it won’t seem that way.

Jordan was psyched to have her photo taken but of course she didn’t know how many of them I was going to take. If she had known in advance I don’t think she would have been so looking forward to it. She is so cute that I couldn’t help myself and I kept repeating, “one more, one more”. Obviously, after a few times like this when she wouldn’t see the end in sight she would grow restless from staying in the same place for more than two minutes and we would need to change locations. Which was fine with me. Every location was another source of incredible photos. She would run from the slides to the train or to the monkey bars or to the fire truck and I’ll be following her from one place to another. This was a long photo shoot, close to 90 minutes, and it took me a long time to decide which photos I wanted to select, there are so many of them that are good for the project that I could have made a book just with them. Lighting was natural light with either ring flash in camera or soft diffused flash off to camera left.

Roberta and her beautiful 4 year old niece Jordan were going to be one of my earlier subjects but we had to reschedule and postpone the shooting. We got lucky and picked a beautiful day for this shoot. We went to Vasona Park in Los Gatos. It is a beautiful park with great picnic areas, several playgrounds, a lake, a small train with a station and train tracks that runs in the summer. The train station was in the shadow but the daylight blended beautifully with the flash. Although we took some photos in the train station my favorite ones were taken in the playground. There is a fiery red train that was just a perfect match for the red dress Roberta was wearing that day and her red lipstick. It was unplanned but it all came together very nicely for a really impactful portrait. It doesn’t hurt that Roberta is a very gracile (she is an accomplished ballroom dancer and teacher) and a strikingly beautiful woman.

A non staged photo of Olga and Laura. As I mentioned they were having a ball catching up with all that had happened since they last saw each other. You know, girl stuff that we dudes don’t always understand. But at least it gave me the opportunity to try my hand at candid shots. I really like the body language in this photo. Not only because their pose is a mirror image of each other but also because they are totally oblivious of me, even though I was standing right there with a big honking camera and a flash that looked like a cyclops’ eye.

Laura is a lovely and lively woman. She left a great barbeque party to join us to do the shooting which I really appreciate. She is also one of those people that are not afraid of a camera, like she were born a model. When she looks at the camera she commands a presence that draws you in. Olga and her were having a very lively chat I didn’t want to interrupt so I took very few shots of her posing. All of them are very good. We had to cut the shoot short because it was a pretty chilly afternoon in San Francisco. After that, we all went to crash the party Laura had left. It was great. Lots of interesting, young and smart people. I’m past half way the middle of my “month” and I’m still catching up processing and composing the book. I’d better start cracking or I’m not going to finish on time. Lighting here was natural, the, mostly, overcast afternoon giving a nice and pleasing light to shoot with.

Yesterday I had some computer woes and lost all the original DNG files from the first three shoots, Nancy and Cyndi, Karina and Debbie and Mia and Jia. As a matter of fact they weren’t computer issues but user issues. I made the most stupid mistakes a user can make. In my defense I’d say that I had only slept for 4 hours and was rushing in order to get ready for another photo shoot. You shouldn’t operate dangerous and heavy machinery when tired and sleepy and the same goes for computers. Now one would think that having 2 redundant disks should prevent this kind of situations but, unfortunately, there is little recourse for user stupidity.

I wanted to do a backup from my working disk to my storage disk in order to free up some space on the working disk. The way I’m organizing the shooting is that I have a directory with all the DNG files for every couple and a subdirectory with the selected or edited photos. I already had a copy of most of the directories I had the DNG files in and I only needed to update and copy the “select” subdirectories I had worked on. In order to free up some space on my working disk I deleted the files in all the parent directories. So far so good. Now the fun begins with the sequence of blunders and mistakes:

First mistake: I emptied the trash.

Second mistake: Instead of copying only the subdirectory I selected all the parent directories and when I was prompted with the do you want to overwrite the files question I clicked “Yes to all”. Bad choice. What that did was to overwrite the parent directory which at this point was empty of files and only had the subdirectory in my working disk. Effectively it deleted all the files in all the parent directories from my backup disk.
Third mistake: I paniced

Fourth mistake: I downloaded the photos I still had in the camera. Up to this point I could have recovered the deleted files with a recover deleted files utility because although the files weren’t “there” anymore, the real physical space (file system pages in technical parlance) hadn’t been reclaimed yet so a recovery program could, most likely, have been able to recover the files. By writing new information on the disk that space was reused and overwritten and the original content forever lost to wherever lost bits go when they are overwritten.

Fifth mistake: Remember, I was still in panic mode. I did the same for the second disk!!!  With, obviously, the same consequences!! Now there was no way I was going to be able to recover anything.

Fortunately, I still have the “select” directories with the few photos I decided to work on for the book so not all is lost for the project. With this state of mind, tired, angry at myself and worried for having lost some of the original files I went on for another long day of photo shoots. It was great that I had great friends and I was able to forget my worries and concentrate on the task at hand. At the end of the night we had a great dinner and I played, for the first time, a few games on the Wii and all was good and fine again.

I’ve known Olga for a long time but I hadn’t seen her in a while. Her participation on this project gave us the opportunity to catch up on gossip regarding common acquaintances. We met in San Francisco at a very famous cafe on lively Columbus Ave, in the heart of little Italy, with her friend Laura. They had so much to talk about that they ignored me so I had the opportunity of taking photos that weren’t posed or staged. I felt like a paparazzi and I’m sure the rest of the patrons in the cafe thought I was one and my friends were superstars. Which given they are two extremely beautiful women they could have been superstars. Although I like the non staged photos, the other ones where they posed look more like real portraits so I’m divided between selecting one or the other. I don’t know if that is because of my preconceptions of candid photos as not being portraits or to some other reason. I know that with other friends we are going to do candid and wacky photos too so we’ll see how that goes.

I have known Christina for a few years now. It was a surprise when I walked into his apartment and saw the beautiful Kawai piano she had bought recently. It turns out that she is a very skilled pianist, (among her other numerous talents), so she delighted us with some tunes while I was setting up the lightning. It turns out her friend, who shall remain nameless and pictureless (at least for the blog) also played the piano so I really had a blast when it was her turn for the photos and she also started playing!

It was so much fun that I almost forgot what I was there for and had to bring myself out of the reverie in order to take the photos. The lightning set-up was cross lighting with two umbrellas and two Nikon strobes, although depending on the angle and the pose the set-up became one main front and one kick (hair) light.