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:
On Sunday while I was walking along the shore of Lake Michigan I received an email notifying me that my book Great Smoky Mountains National Park: Thirty Years of American Landscapes had won the Silver Medal in the Art, Photography & Coffee Table books category of the Eric Hoffer Book Awards. It is an honor to have received this accolade from the industry.
In the review of the book US Review of Books said the following:
“The US Review of Books: The Eric Hoffer Award.”
Great Smoky Mountain National Park: Thirty Years of American Landscapes, Richard Mack, Quiet Light Publishing – Photographer Richard Mack doesn’t let words get in the way of his sumptuous series of pictures of the Great Smoky Mountain National Park. For thirty years, Mack has roamed and captured images of this National Park beauty. The book is divided into the major park sections (i.e. Cades Cove, Oconaluftee, Roaring Fork etc.), exploring the natural subdivisions within each. Occasionally the filters are set for subtle effect, but mostly you will find icy clear depictions of the majesty wrought from this mountainous pine and deciduous forest in every season. It is the kind of coffee table book that draws you in and has you flipping through every page.
It’s an honor to have been considered for this award and even more humbling to have been the first runner up for this award. More awards will be awarded in New York at BookExpo later in May so stay tuned to see how we fair in those awards!
If you haven’t seen the book you can Look Inside the Book at Quiet Light Publishing and purchase signed copies! You can also purchase signed copies of the 2007 Eric Hoffer Book Award Gold Medalist winner The Lewis & Clark Trail: American Landscapes!
