Richard Mack on Publishing, Photography & Fine Art Printing
Author: Richard Mack
I have been a commercial photography since 1980. I specialize in location photography for advertising and corporatations. I have shot everything from architectural projects, hotels/travel to steel mills and agricultural products. I have also shot landscapes for myself and in 2001 began my first book project, The Lewis & Clark Trail AMERICAN LANDSCAPES. It was published by Quiet Light Publishing in 2005. In 2009 my second book Great Smoky Mountains National Park: Thirty Years of American Landscapes was published and has become the best selling photographic book in the park. Since then we have won over a dozen awards. This blog will share a bit of the publishing and photography musings as well as thoughts on shooting on locations around the world. Currently working and talking about two books I am currently working on. I hope you enjoy!
This morning USA Book News announced the Best Books 2010 Awards and our book Great Smoky Mountains National Park: Thirty Years of American Landscapes, Photographs by Richard Mackwas honored as the Gold Medal Winner for Best Book: Nature Photography 2010.
USABookNews.com, the premiere online magazine and review website for mainstream and independent publishing houses, announced the winners and finalists of THE “BEST BOOKS 2010” AWARDS (BBA) on October 26, 2010. Over 500 winners and finalists were announced in over 140 categories covering print and audio books. Awards were presented for titles published in 2010 and late 2009.
Winners and finalists traversed the publishing landscape: Simon & Schuster, Penguin/Putnum, Rodale, McGraw-Hill, John Wiley & Sons, Moody Publishers, American Cancer Society, Sourcebooks & hundreds of independent houses contributed to the Best Books Awards competition.
Quiet Light Publishing is honored to have had Great Smoky Mountains National Park: Thirty Years of American, Photographs by Richard Mack, selected as the Best Nature Photography Book for 2010. It is always an honor when others recognize your work, especially when it spans 30 years of photography. To be named the Best Nature Photography book for the year is incredibly humbling.
As a publisher there are many moments were you have a great sense of accomplishment, when sales are good, when great reviews come in, when awards are heaped upon a new release, but there is one moment which stands above all else. It only can happen once per book. It is that moment when the finish book arrives from the printer. You can only see it for the first time once. And I had that pleasure this morning. This time it was also compounded by the fact that I could watch Steve Azzato, photographer of Their Love of Music, see his work in finished form. The excitement on his face was beyond description. He has put in almost 5 years working on this project and this morning he was rewarded with his first look at his compellation of work in book form, for generations to be able to look over.
I’ve worked on this project for about a year, and having been talking to Steve about it for almost five years. So I too have in some small way grown up with this project as well. As publisher and designer on this book I have spent the better part of a year going over typefaces, images, quotes and every detail of this book. So for me it was also one of those moments, the time when even after you’ve seen all the images time and again and all the parts in proofs, now you see it as a finished book.
You put it on a table, walk around it, set it on a shelf, turn each page carefully and even though you’ve seen each one before in the proofs, now it is different. You can pick this up as one complete piece of work. It’s a book! Books, those tactile pieces we all love to hold, turn the page and see what is next whether in written form, or in portraits of musicians we may or may not know. To read the words, read the photographs and to understand the meaning of the body of work. Books have a place in all our homes and are sometimes handed down from one generation to the next. They are special pieces.
And it this case one man has documented 117 musicians from all genres of music and helps you understand what makes them take to the road night after night to bring you their special talents.
Yup, one perfect moment in publishing. And I am pleased to have been part of it this morning.
If you want to see a PDF of the book you can go to www.quietlightpublishing.com and click on the link there. Sorry you’ll have to wait until 10/10/10 for the release of this fine book which, by the way, makes a perfect holiday gift! And if you agree you have until September 30th to pre-order at a 30% discount – and have it signed by photographer Steve Azzato!
As a publisher of fine art photography books we look at many things going on around our part of the world here in the Midwest which have interest in the art world. There is currently a wonderful exhibit of Herni Cartier-Bresson’s work at the Chicago Art Institute through October. I for one love his work, and the fact that he worked almost exclusively in 35mm, my particular choice of formats, even for those landscapes I am known for.
Here’s a great article from the Chicago Tribune today about the exhibit:
Yesterday we uploaded the files for the dust jacket for our next release Their Love of Music by Steve Azzato. When you design the dust jacket many aspects come into play. Does it accurately convey the meaning of the book? Does the cover image draw in people’s eyes when it sits halfway across the store on a shelf? Can you put info on the outside which will MAKE people want to open it up, or better yet buy it!
Yes, the cover of a book is everything in some ways. I think we did a great job with this book. The image of Pinetop Perkins is perfect. It is interesting how images for every book we’ve published seem to leap out of the pile of images in the book. It is quickly obvious which image works for the cover. Then al the other aspects came into it, the book description for the back cover – along with an image back there and of course we couldn’t pick just one more for there – so we came up with this option which also makes you want to open the book to see what all the other portraits look like. And of course in this case we put the list of profiles artists.
Interestingly one of the hardest parts is the author’s bios! How do you condense a lifetime of accomplishments down to one short paragraph? Yet I guess for a book like this where each artist has one great statement on why they love music it seems appropriate to keep the bios short.
The book is about to go on press next week. Steve’s five year journey on this project is about to turn a new page. And he did it all for the love of music – and photography!
Stay tuned for more news at it develops on this book and its October 1 release – and you can pre-order the book at Quiet Light Publishing now.
Also follow the Their Love of Music Blog where we talk about the artists, profile them, put up video and music links and the latest show notes and announcements on their upcoming shows.
Today we released the latest copy of the Quiet Light Publishing eNewsletter in which we announced the latest book from Quiet Light, Their Love of Music by photographer Steve Azzato. He sat down with 117 musicians and asked one question – why do you do what you do everyday? The answers are as diverse as the musicians themselves, from Aaron Neville, Dave Brubeck, Roseanne Cash, Dave Mason and Steve Miller. We’ll be writting much more on this blog about the book in the very near future.
We also talk about some of the book awards we received for Great Smoky Mountains National Park: Thirty Years of American Landscapes at BookExpo in New York this spring, including the Gold Medal in the Ben Franklin Book Awards for Best Cover and a Silver Medal for Best Art, Photography and Coffee Table Book in the Eric Hofer Book Awards.
