The latest edition or version of my photo book with Blurb Books can be reviewed and purchased here; [url=https://www.blurb.co.uk/b/12426701-girls-on-film-alpha-women]Girls On Film; Alpha Women by John Southworth | Blurb Books UK[/url]   The preview feature never seems to work very well for me, but you will get an idea of what the book is about. It defies easy categorisation; a number of attempts at criticism on other sites have only served to reveal the authors' frustration with something that they can't handle intellectually and which makes their commercial work appear lightweight. Which it is, in relative terms. I would describe Girls on Film and it's images as incorporating elements of glamour, art nude and fashion photography, but without consistently falling into the stylistic conventions and clichés that tend to define these genres. There are plenty of instructional books on fashion and glamour photography but I don't think a book of magazine photography is necessarily a viable concept. It's easier to maintain interest over the 60-100 pages of a magazine than over the length of a 250 page book, the point being that most magazine photography is fairly predictable. Someone on another site was accusing me of parodying glamour and fashion, but the question there must be, why would anyone go to the trouble of doing that when most glamour and fashion photography is so hackneyed and predictable as to border on the parodic in the first place, making further parody very difficult and largely pointless? Fundamentally a parody is an imitation of something else in which certain things are changed or exaggerated, intentionally or otherwise. In an intentional parody, the original has to be recognisable in the imitation or the point of the parody is lost. Some of the genius of people like Uwe Ommer may reside in their ability to produce work that looks original and not like an inferior imitation; this is where most others fail completely. Price is £95.00 plus VAT, which is admittedly quite a lot for a book, but there isn't much I can do about it. My share is US $10.00 in case you wonder. At times you may be able to get a discount, I was able to get 40% off. Because I think this version book is a significant improvement over the previous versions, I've deleted those from the Blurb Bookstore. There are twenty new pictures, many others have been re-edited and they do actually look better on paper than on a computer screen. Over the last year I've learned through trial and error how to optimise images for digital printing. It just takes practice; sometimes things can look OK on a computer screen but terrible when printed. Colour casts seem to be more noticeable in printed images. Some images, eight to be precise are repeated in different edits, this might seem an unusual thing to do but in the context of this book, I think it is justifiable and works quite well in helping to impart a kind of visual rhythm. Since placing the order with Blurb Books I have noticed that there is a minor error in the contents page, the Equipment chapter actually starts on page 64. This will be corrected when I get around to it, but you'll understand that it's not a high priority. What I can't understand is how the page numbers of the subsequent chapters are correct.. In other respects I think the book has now reached a state where it doesn't require further improvement and in fact there would be a risk of losing all spontaneity if I did continue to work on it.  Here are a few suggested do's and don'ts for the benefit of anyone thinking of doing something along similar lines: If you've never done this before, do be prepared to put in the time and effort necessary to get it right. It may well require a development process and several successive versions of your book. Do realise that images can be optimised for printing or the internet but not both at the same time, images for printing require slightly higher contrast. In the same way that not all colours will display correctly on a monitor, original image colours may vary with digital printing using CMYK technology. This is more likely to be an issue with greens and blues than with red and orange tones, I haven't encountered any serious problems. Strange colour separation effects can occur in printing if the colour saturation is too great. Some printers offer CMYKOGV seven colour extended gamut digital printing, or an equivalent as an option at extra cost. By a fortunate coincidence, the colour gamut of CMYK four colour digital printing is not too dissimilar from that of a computer screen. So if you can see it on your screen, it will probably print that way, allowing for a reduction in contrast in the printed result. Don't set out to simply imitate something else you've seen, another book perhaps. Make something that expresses your own photographic ideas as opposed to something that looks "professional" (many "mainstream" photo books are actually useless). Do aim to have a real impact with your work. Don't hold back or pull back in an attempt to avoid controversy. Produce something powerful that will stand out from the rest. Do ignore the hateful criticism from the sad people who are destined to spend the rest of their lives sucking up to more obnoxious idiots who rank above them in the hierarchy of the traditional publishing industry and/or the traditional fashion industry. No, they don't deserve your sympathy or your time. Competition in the field of publishing is of course intense, as the traditional book and magazine markets have experienced a significant decline in sales over the last few decades as a result of the internet. And also because many of their publications are at best boring and at worst completely useless. Risk aversion is evident and makes the overall situation worse. Most of the photography magazines are now part of history. Don't rely on help from other, supposedly professional people who in most cases are just looking to make a buck at your expense. Don't pay for things like editing or conversion to PDF when you can either do it yourself or get it done for next to nothing, if it needs doing at all. PDF conversion is done automatically with most photo book printing services, but some allow you to upload your book in PDF format instead of using their app. A PDF file will be needed if you want to use a traditional printing company to print your book.  I didn't need any help with Girls on Film, but of course there's nothing wrong with a joint effort if that's the way you like to do things, and it might be a worthwhile exercise to produce a book that way. Quite a lot of art photo books are compilations of the work of several photographers. There are a number of PDF standards for printing, this article has some information about this if you copy and paste the link; https://www.marconet.com/blog/9-PDF-Presets-to-Use-for-High-Quality-Printing More information on PDF files can be found here; https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PDF PDF/X is the PDF standard for printing, within this file subset there are various standards from PDF/X-1 to PDF/X-6. This is where it starts getting technical and your reliance on other people's expertise, whether real or otherwise may start to become an undesirable factor in the overall equation... Don't pay a subscription for "professional" editing software. Using the apps provided by the photo book services will be much less expensive, easier, and faster. The Photobox and Blurb Books free downloadable apps are both versatile and easy to use.  A comparative review here of different photo book companies; https://www.techradar.com/news/best-photo-books?artc_pg=1 Blurb come out on top here but for some reason they don't mention the fact that they have an online bookstore through which you can sell your book. There are only a few companies that do this and I would have thought it obvious that it's a major advantage. Blurb books also allow you to sell through Amazon USA. More about this here; https://petapixel.com/2014/04/22/blurb-announces-partnership-amazon-simplify-self-publishing-photo-books/ Do be as technically knowledgeable as you can be with regard to things like file formats and different printing processes.  Don't believe claims to the effect that certain printing processes are intrinsically better or worse than others. Modern digital printing is about as good as anything else and technically better than offset lithography in some ways. The maximum density achievable with inkjet or LEP digital printing will generally exceed what is possible with offset printing. Close examination with a 10X magnifier will always reveal white patches in black areas in an offset printed book. Don't expect your book to be an instant bestseller. Art photo books are not big sellers, generally speaking. Do work at your own pace, taking as long as you need to. Don't push yourself too hard in order to take advantage of time-limited special offers. Do compare different photo book publishers to find the services that best suit your project and your budget. They do vary quite a lot in terms of book formats and sizes, maximum number of pages permitted, paper thickness and quality, covers, prices, etc. Do design your book to take advantage of a particular book format, for example if you go for a lay-flat book you can have more double page spreads, you don't lose as much of the images in the gutter. But it usually costs a lot more than perfect binding, and despite claims to the contrary, it is not as durable. So for example my copy of Captured Women by Jeff Dunas from the 1980s is starting to come apart. Remember that the complete book should be more than just a scrapbook of favourite pictures, unless of course you want it to look that way. The aim is to achieve the successful integration of graphic design and image content, while avoiding a design that actually distracts attention from the pictures. Try to avoid a self-consciously arty, gimmicky or flashy book design with tiny images surrounded by large areas of white paper for example. 

I've used Blurb to produce books for clients, finding their quality good and their prices reasonable. One day I'll get round to a personal collection, which is a far nicer way of presenting photos than an album.  Till then my snaps are here and my agency work is on Instagram. [url]https://www.instagram.com/acestudioscouk/[/url]

I've found that their quality is good, sometimes there are slight issues with the accuracy of paper cutting and variations in images between one book and another but generally they're pretty good I think. Their Standard Portrait, 10 by 8 inch hardcover format that I use is good value, and it allows up to 400 pages with the standard paper. Are the books you've produced for clients with Blurb publicly available? I'd be interested to see some of those. 

Unfortunately, the books were for chairman's company reports, investment projects and portfolios on behalf of investment companies, banks and sugar producers. Blurb and its contemporaries are ideal for this type of high quality, low volume product.  Apart from the quality, this type of book is good for security because it is put directly into the hands of the intended recipient, rather than risk using web pages. Larger production numbers may have been more suited to e-publishing but that is beyond my field of experience. I have considered producing some Blurb notebook sized books which could be slipped into a camera bag. The subjects would be lighting guides and posing guides. I've found that it is often better to show a beginner model a picture of a pose from a book or magazine, rather than struggling to get an internet connection and wasting time, fumbling on a device. Up to now, I've not found the time nor energy to produce either as yet, so don't hold your breath! 🙄

There's a book titled Posing Patterns by L.E. Broome, first published 1958 which has 1226 full length pictures of models in poses, both standing and with various items of furniture and props. In the introduction the author explains that he started by keeping a scrapbook of favourite poses cut out of magazines, and he goes into technical details of the photography as well. The models are dressed in leotards with belts. Artist's Model by John Everard, first published 1951 is quite similar but with nude models, there are also semi-nude poses, close-ups of hands, legs and feet. This is just one of a series of books that Everard produced before and after the Second World War, up to the early 1960s. They are sought after and usually fetch from £30.00 upwards on ebay but I just found a bargain at £11.95 with a couple of missing pages. As the title suggests, this book was intended to be useful to the artist. An article here about John Everard who was among the first people to photograph model Pamela Green; https://pamela-green.com/photographer-john-everard/ More here. John Everard (his real name was Edward Ralph Forward) was from my local area originally. https://pamela-green.com/edward-ralph-forward-aka-john-everard-1898-1964/ And here can be found a bibliography of John Everard; https://pamela-green.com/a-bibliography-of-john-everard/ Neither of these books is pocket sized but Posing Patterns is reasonably compact at about 6 by 8 inches. Finding a copy may be difficult and the poses are what you would expect from the 1950s. I think it's worth remembering that some poses can require a lot of physical effort, a pose with one or both legs stretched straight out and unsupported horizontally or at an angle from the vertical for example is demanding on the model. A new book of this kind is a good idea, there might be one or two things around already but nothing modern that I would consider a must-have item for the photographer, although the books mentioned above are worth picking up if you can find them at reasonable prices, the one I found recently was Sculptor's Model by John Everard (Edward Ralph Forward). Very similar in concept to Artist's Model, and the photography still impresses.