I like blurb. I first wrote about them in The Star about five years ago. I’ve published a lot of books since then, and although I’ve tried others, either for review purposes or just because they made me an offer I couldn’t refuse, it’s blurb that I use most often. I’ve made small softcover books and large coffee table volumes of vacation pictures.
So when they invited me to join a photo safari at The Distillery District, I accepted. So yesterday – cold, rainy, not really the kind of weather you want to venture out into, I packed up my 50D and set out. There was a pretty good turnout, including several blurb staffers, including Dan, their photographer at large. He gave us a few assignments over a couple of hours. I always appreciate the time to think about an image and compose it carefully.
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| One of our assignments was to take portraits of our fellow safarians. |
You can check out a few of my favourite shots here:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/heilbron/sets/72157631844020554/
The best part of the event came afterwards, when other blurb users joined us at Café Uno. The creativity displayed by the people who came and brought their blurb projects along was really astounding. There were books of all sizes and types. One person brought his 400 page book documenting his trip to China, I also chatted with a woman who’d made a book of her trip to Spain. It was great to chat with them, and learn more about their book projects and photos.
So here’s the digital guy, the guy who gave up using paper and carrying a pen shortly after he got his first iPad, raving about books. What’s up with that?
I think that these self-published books are the best way to store and keep photos. I never liked slide shows or dragging people up to the media room to look at photos on my computer – even showing vacation photos on my iPad seems just too controlling. After all, I have to talk about every picture. (I’m sure it gets boring quickly, but my friends just keep nodding politely.) But a book – you can pick it up, browse, put it down at your own pace. There are some text explanations – you read them if you want to.
And one more thing. I’m really afraid for any digital media format. In my time, I’ve lost the ability to play all kinds of analog media from super 8mm film to open reel audio tapes. I can’t open files I created in desktop publishing programs ten years ago. While I’m hopeful that jpeg will be around for a while, I’m also pretty sure that as a format it will reach an end of life, leaving my photos unviewable.
But not my blurb books. They’re beautiful and my grandchildren won’t need any special tools to view, read and enjoy them.
