SoFoBoMo – prep part 1
Filed in SoFoBoMo - February 2, 2008I haven’t been following what other SoFoBoMo-ers have been saying. I’ve got a bit of catching up to do. But my subconscious has gone on picking away at the project even as my conscious self has been fully engaged on medical matters. Maybe it is even a good thing that I haven’t read the plans of others before roughing out my own. No peer pressure or influence here :-)
I haven’t decided where in the fuzzy month to start yet, but the other parts of the show are going to be as follows:
- handheld, film photography. Probably monochrome 35mm rangefinder.
- twenty days allocated to taking the set of 35 shots.
- ten days allocated to editing, and layout. I’ll be using a commercial processor so I won’t get the later shots back until well into the final ten days. Conversely I’ll be editing a bit as I go along during the ‘taking’ days.
- one day allocated to tidying everything up and getting a web ready copy up online somewhere.
- I know that I can string together the required 40 or so pages using Photoshop if I have to, but I want to explore using In Design between now and the proper start of the project. I’ve acquired an older copy of that software (and whilst I’m sure that the current version rings bells and blows whistles better, the version that I have was being used by real live designers and publishers only a few years ago), and I’ll be playing with that over the coming weeks.
- you’ll see the project happen live here. That may not make exciting reading, but you can laugh at the out-takes at least.
- what I want to end up with is a pdf that looks like a book. It won’t be in the format of any given print-on-demand publisher because I know enough about monochrome p-o-d publishing that it is a route to disappointment. If I have to re-optimise it later to get it onto paper then so be it. I’ll be thinking of it as more a book proposal than a finished work. This is in the spirit of the novel writing month where the assumption is that although you have finished writing the book it will still need editing.
Which says nothing about the content of the project. My current thoughts are that I want to walk Aberdeen. I feel slightly odd living somewhere that I’ve never walked around, so a necessary part of the project will be a pair of comfy shoes. Some people; some scenics. Public places. Literally what I see whilst walking.
Rather than bother with InDesign, I’ve opted to try using Pages (from Apple’s iWork package) to lay out photos and text on pages. Pages offers some suitable framing and shadow options for photos that may proev useful in my planned layout — need to do some experimenting. It seems to offer all that I need. And I don’t think it has a steep learning curve.
February 3, 2008 @ 12:13 am
Dave,
Will Pages output to pdf? And how does it handle file size and resolution (one of the long standing problems with Word was that once you started adding images the file size quickly got out of control).
February 3, 2008 @ 9:10 am
I downloaded and had a little tryout with Scribus yesterday. Not sure what to expect from DTP software but Scribus has more than enough funtionality to keep me happy. It can output to PDF and is free!
February 4, 2008 @ 4:22 am
Colin,
First lots of strength with the medial situation.
Thanks for sharing this. I’m planning to do it myself, and process information is always fun and interesting to read..
About ‘Pages ‘can output to PDF, as any other mac program by using the print option and save as PDF.
February 4, 2008 @ 10:10 am
my idea landed fully formed in my head about 12:30 last night and stayed there, keeping me awake until 3am.
My only regret is I want to go and start, now and I have to wait.
February 13, 2008 @ 12:11 am
You sound like you’re already well under way!
Theres a few of us over here http://www.flickr.com/groups/717288@N22/ that are planning to do it. I’m doing a similar walkabout thing in Maldon (also UK) so if you want to toss a few ideas about feel free. My username over there is SerenDigital!
March 14, 2008 @ 8:26 am