The story:
I searched and searched and I got desperate and even more desperate. This cannot be that I have taken more than 50.000 pictures and that I don't find a single picture that I really like to print. I guess it's rather a matter of how I organize my pictures. There must be treasuries, but where. On flickr I usually post the best of..... Going through my work there I had the idea to create a book.
Printing:
One must print. This is a very important next step if one wants to develop as a photographer. Pictures that are online have a life period of under one second if they are on Instagram with an often used hashtag i.e.. Printing forces to work precisely. To live with the own work helps to redefine the own style. It's also the fruit of the work.
The starting point of my life as a photographer:
How deep should I dive into the past? Today the year 2000 seems like the Middle Age. So I went back till the year 2013. Also in 2013 I have taken a lot of pictures. I decided to connect the year 2013 with my first group project. We met via Facebook. We formed a group of about 15 women, all very passionate about photography. Every week another women gave a topic. This was the strength and the weakness of this group. The interests and therefore also the topics were so differently, that I cannot find a read thread in my 52 pictures. On the other hand to get out of the comfort zone can be a good experience, too. Why not taking pictures of landscapes as an exercise? An other example: One week we had the topic to take a picture with a mobile phone. I had no mobile phone and was very reluctant to get another gadget. But I wanted to finish this project and a few months later I had a mobile phone. It allowed me to complete the series of 52 pictures. It#s one of my best pictures in this series.
It's always amazing how much knowledge a group of 15 people have if they share it. I learned from another photo shop in Munich. Wee had a lot of fun and praised each other a lot.
The first book:
One evening I sat here and thought that I should do something more profound with that project. Just to have it in a folder in Flickr shouldn't be enough. It took me another month till I decided to make a book out of it. Flickr works together with blurb.com. So I created a book with these software tools. I spent organizing the pictures, I wrote the contents in the last pages of the book and I clicked on sent.
A few days later the book was in my mailbox. I ripped the package and couldn't wait to have this book in my hands. It's of very high quality. It became a true art book. I only wanted to have a picture on one page, the other page should be untouched. This looks very generous and precious. I went for a grey background. Wow, I loved the result.
In the evening of that day we went out for dinner. Before the Miso soup arrived, I showed the book to my husband. He looked at every picture. He turned one page after the other without being in a hurry. To show a book is something else than to show pictures on a mobile phone.
To go through the process of creating a book gave me a lot of insights. It became rather simple to create it and even to publish a book is no more that difficult. It's fun.
For me my photographic life of the year 2013 is connected with this project. With this book I hold a piece of reality in my hands. It's motivating. I celebrate this event.
There are still a few pictures in that book that I still love. Most pictures I wouldn't even publish anymore. But this is not that important. In 2013 life was different. I loved to see how much I had learned within 4 years. Each picture was an important tiny step.