G' Night: New York (sounds British - G'Night Governor)
That's going to be the working title of the first calendar: all night shots. And I have pah-lenty to choose from. It's also a good printing test since I (and maybe you dear prospective customer) get to see what the tonal range will be like.
Of course - first problem I ran into was quite a lot of image cropping necessary to hit their 11.25 by 8.75 inch side (decided to start with the smaller size after looking at pricing and also looking on Lulu at what sold best). As far as cropping goes, what I mean is - it seems (and I could be wrong about this) that they want the image to fit the calendar page - i.e. I don't think there is a way to say: this is the image size, it will fit on the paper, just center it even though it's smaller than the page.
Maybe there is a way - not sure yet.
A lot of what I'm going to be futzing with in the beginning will be calendar related (as opposed to book) but it's a good way to get me started and seems like the quickest thing for me to produce.
G'Night New York - Calendar of Black and White Photography of the city that never sleeps unless forced to.
Reminds me of a story. When my father first came to NYC from Cleveland Ohio (he was about 12 at the time); he said he couldn't get over the fact that there were people and cars out at night.
This was around 1935. He said he never got over that. Years later, in his seventies then - we were driving through Manhattan at 4 a.m. - and he looked around and saw lots of cars and said again - just can't get over the fact that there are this many people doing something at this time of night. Some of those early - he's how it works where I grew up - soul mappings just stay with you forever I guess.
Lying in bed, I heard a tremendous booming sound. My windows shook. Wondered if it was an explosion or just something falling off a truck. Could be those pesky terrorists again. Well, probably not. I'll find out what it was in the morning. Sounds of several police sirens. A bit of walkie-talkie chatter. And like that - as if they had put on the sounds of the forrest CD - I'm sound asleep.
And waking up - well let's just say that when you flip the t.v. or radio on - you will surely be greeted by the announcement that some tractor-trailer has jack-knifed on some important artery; usually in the early morning. You know that it jack-knifed at an important exit or entrance ramp since those are the only locations worth reporting. For all I know they're doing a jack-knife dance throughout the highways of America. And the only thing that does pique the interest is: what kind of truck jack-knifed.
"Good morning, New York. Seems that a tractor-trailer has carrying ketchup in glass bottles has overturned on the exit ramp of the G.W. Bridge. Traffic is stalled for miles, and some of the ketchup has poured into the Hudson River. The E.P.A. is on the scene, as well as cleanup crews."
OR
"Good morning, New York. A truck jack-knifed this morning on the entrance ramp (fill in the blank) of the New Jersey turnpike. The truck was carrying containers of ball-bearings. Clean-up crews have been slipping and sliding all morning. We interviewed one driver who was behind the truck when the ball-bearings tumbled out - and he told us it weren't a problem since his car just speeded ahead faster than normal - though he couldn't steer it too good."
G'Night New York.
I always wonder about those tractor-trailers and their equilibrium. They always seem to be jack-knifed and it's always on an entrance or exit ramp where millions of cars need to pass.
11/03/2005
iViewMedia Pro Vers. 3
iViewMediaPro 3 is available - and I upgraded from vers. 2.x to 3.0 for $99. I've installed it but haven't done anything with it yet. Reason for upgrading: to be honest, MediaPro is control center for just about everything I do, from launching files in Photoshop to creating the photo galleries. And I noticed that they've improved (added functionality) to gallery creation process including direct FTP so I won't have to go into some 3rd party app to do that; and a couple of other features I wanted as far as searching goes, and - smart as they are they said that this upgrade price was only good until November something or other which gave me the extra push.
As soon as I get a chance, I want to see how it works with the old catalogs I have, i.e. do I need to create this stuff again (category sets, custom fields etc.); or can I import or merge or upgrade the old catalog structure. Will find out soon.
As soon as I get a chance, I want to see how it works with the old catalogs I have, i.e. do I need to create this stuff again (category sets, custom fields etc.); or can I import or merge or upgrade the old catalog structure. Will find out soon.
Calendar and Zen Hotdogs
I went through the business with Lulu of creating a calendar yesterday - just a quick run through only uploading one image - but it does seem pretty straight forward. Now - what to call it and what images to select?
It's tempting to just put images that relate to the season as a first go round:
I sort of wanted to call it: A Season In Hell (Rimbaud) but thought better of it. Though that might be the second calendar. I also ordered someone's b&w calendar so I could see what it looks like (which was stupid since I could have made my own and ordered it).
Of course they've got two types: premium and regular (gas pump analogy) and I'm going full hog for the premium one first. Might as well start at the to and work my way down.
You get into the usual funk about what to call it, but at least you've only got 12 images to select assuming that you use one of the monthly images for the cover.
Look - at some point - after I reach a quarter of a million page views per month (which will be soon) without making money - I'm going to get myself a nice hot-dog stand in Central Park - and hang my pictures or books or calendars from the awning. And if anyone asks about buying one - I'm going to say - oh well - you see they're not for sale anymore. I've become a Zen hot-dog vendor. I will concentrate fully on the making of your hotdog. Do you wish mustard on that?
What, hotdog vendor - you can't make any more? Not for sale!
No, sir. You see these hotdogs, sir. Each one is made with the same rapt attention that I once put into images. However, these sell better. Go ahead, try one. Come back soon.
I digress - so calendar names. Should be easy enough:
NEW YORK - 2006 - Central Park Edition
NEW YORK - 2006 - People Edition
NEW YORK - 2006 - A Season in Hell (Photographer's Edition)
NEW YORK - 2006 - Papaya King (Gourmand Edition)
NEW YORK - 2006 - Pet Edition
NEW YORK - 2006 - The Winter Edition - just people suffering in the snow
Now I'm not sure about this - legally - but you might be able to use a line from a popular song for captions - and maybe the lawyers out there would know - just one line per picture. Something from Dylan would be first of course: "I'm walkin' down streets with no names..."
Stuff like that. It's endless. Let's see what I come up with. It is one of the pleasures of all this - how you have to keep coming up with ideas to stay afloat - and that some of those ideas are exciting. I think I first learned photography by studying a very good quality Ansel Adams calendar.
Sometimes - it feels like you're standing still, not making any forward progress - only to discover when you look back that you were in fact speeding along at the time.
It's tempting to just put images that relate to the season as a first go round:
I sort of wanted to call it: A Season In Hell (Rimbaud) but thought better of it. Though that might be the second calendar. I also ordered someone's b&w calendar so I could see what it looks like (which was stupid since I could have made my own and ordered it).
Of course they've got two types: premium and regular (gas pump analogy) and I'm going full hog for the premium one first. Might as well start at the to and work my way down.
You get into the usual funk about what to call it, but at least you've only got 12 images to select assuming that you use one of the monthly images for the cover.
Look - at some point - after I reach a quarter of a million page views per month (which will be soon) without making money - I'm going to get myself a nice hot-dog stand in Central Park - and hang my pictures or books or calendars from the awning. And if anyone asks about buying one - I'm going to say - oh well - you see they're not for sale anymore. I've become a Zen hot-dog vendor. I will concentrate fully on the making of your hotdog. Do you wish mustard on that?
What, hotdog vendor - you can't make any more? Not for sale!
No, sir. You see these hotdogs, sir. Each one is made with the same rapt attention that I once put into images. However, these sell better. Go ahead, try one. Come back soon.
I digress - so calendar names. Should be easy enough:
NEW YORK - 2006 - Central Park Edition
NEW YORK - 2006 - People Edition
NEW YORK - 2006 - A Season in Hell (Photographer's Edition)
NEW YORK - 2006 - Papaya King (Gourmand Edition)
NEW YORK - 2006 - Pet Edition
NEW YORK - 2006 - The Winter Edition - just people suffering in the snow
Now I'm not sure about this - legally - but you might be able to use a line from a popular song for captions - and maybe the lawyers out there would know - just one line per picture. Something from Dylan would be first of course: "I'm walkin' down streets with no names..."
Stuff like that. It's endless. Let's see what I come up with. It is one of the pleasures of all this - how you have to keep coming up with ideas to stay afloat - and that some of those ideas are exciting. I think I first learned photography by studying a very good quality Ansel Adams calendar.
Sometimes - it feels like you're standing still, not making any forward progress - only to discover when you look back that you were in fact speeding along at the time.
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