Thursday, July 7, 2011

My Life Is An Open Book

We are revealed by the images we create, as scan my files I see my life flashing before me through all these images. So I have been playing with the idea of creating some sort of book using some of my images. Now-a-days there seems to be all kinds of publishing software that give you complete control in creating layouts and self publishing. I have been looking heavily into one called Blurb that seems to give you a variety of shapes, styles and texture of pages. I have been working with the software and it seems very simple to use. I have also talked to several people that have used it and said it was a positive experience. I have ordered many of their books and some of the quality is quite good. It has always been my dream to have something I have done in a book format. I am an avid collector of books on male nude photography and have book shelves dedicated to the subject. To me, I still love that tactile feel of leafing through a book and seeing the printed images on a page in front of me. I often go to these photographers as my source of inspiration and often times will have many books lying open around the studio open to images that I admire, a certain characteristic I am working toward in my own images. It puts me and the model in the same frame of reference as a jumping off point. It is so fun to look at one photographer’s vision and see their variations within their unique style.

So where do I begin this process of selecting what images from my collection should go into such a project? If anyone has any suggestions of images they think would work well or ideas of concepts on structure of organization please Facebook me and we can begin a conversation in that direction. It would be ideal to find someone with some kind of art direction skills who could help me work on the project. If anyone out there is interested let me know. I would like to use the writings of Tony Brunetto and have begun a conversation with him about the possibility. Now that it is getting very hot outside, this week is about catching up on past work that I have gotten behind on. I am shooting for beginning this process the following weekend. Please, please, please let me know if anyone has any thoughts or ideas of what they think would be interesting.

VIEW FULL IMAGE: Zach #343

3 comments:

BDSpellman said...

Only one thing I can say: GO FOR IT!

Love,

Bryan

Anonymous said...

That is a wonderful, fantastic, amazing idea! I think a book of your art will sell like crazy, Terry. Put me down for at least one copy :)

Alison

Matthew said...

I like the idea of "normalcy" versus the typical nude male stereotypes. While muscles can make a person attractive, there are other types of bodies that have just as much to offer. Though maybe I'm biased here since I'm not a muscle "stud."

Regular people. Regular settings. Relaxed pose. Just an idea. It would also be neat if you could get your subject to write a paragraph (maybe for the "other page" next to the image) describing their views of their own body before and after the process. Or a statement on the process itself. (Like the questions you often ask... Why do you want to be photographed? What did you get out of it? Etc.)