Just a quick burst of random photography walking to work through Bellinzona, Ticino, one random morning in May. No plan, no preconceived idea, and very little time. Just point, and shoot. It’s probably something I do two or three times a week, and forget about. But for some reason this little set said “publish me”. So here it is.

And for those who like to know, all shot with an Olympus E-P5 with Sigma DN 60mm f2.8 lens.

I have an announcement to make: I’ve finally managed to complete a project, and have self-published my first book, on Blurb.

Still in the plastic wrapper

To be honest, “Primavere Toscane” is a very personal project, and was partly a kind of dry run, in advance of several other ideas I have in mind. It is a slim volume, weighing in at a mere 40 pages. Here’s what I have to say about it:

For over a decade, every springtime has been marked for me by a short visit to an area of Tuscany, just south of the city of Siena. This book is a distillation of hundreds of photos taken over these years, in the same places, and the same time of year.

Hundreds, if not thousands of photo books celebrating Tuscany have been published. The landscape, the towns and cities, the people, the culture, the food, even are richly visual and deeply attractive to photographers. Many of these are strongly biased towards the misty, early morning light, to the classic vistas across the Val d’Orcia, and the golden light illuminating the farmhouses and rolling hills. Certainly I’ve been drawn to these too, and this book does contain a few examples of such scenes. But more and more I’ve been attracted to the stronger, even harsh full daylight, which we landscape photographers are told to avoid. The problem with the morning light, apart from the fact that early morning in Tuscany is usually painfully early in late springtime, is that it ends up showing a very romanticised view, representing only one aspect of the complex character of the region.

I’m certainly not going to claim to do any better at representing all facets of Tuscany, or even the small area within which these photographs are taken, but I do hope to show a personal interpretation rather than replicating the work of celebrated authors.

I decided to go the full DIY route, creating the layout in InDesign, and preparing the photos myself. For creating the layout, I used JPG proxy images, and then created exact size CMYK versions, sharpened at the output size. It was a lot of work, but the results are good. I chose a hardback format, and heavier Proline paper. Two things came out of that: 40 pages is barely enough to fill out a hardback format, and the Proline paper is nice, but has a degree of print-through, which surprises me. Only a little,but still. For subsequent printing I think I’d select Proline coated. The selection of paper stock is a bit of a pain with Blurb, and they could make it easier. For example, I have a couple of Blurb books by other authors, but I have no way of telling which stock they are printed on. But generally, the Blurb experience is great, apart from one eye-watering detail: the prices. They’re just way too high.

The photography in the book is a mixture of “normal” and panoramic frames, and was edited down from about 700 shots. It is roughly divided into thematic sections, but these are not labelled. I’ve set it so you can flick through the whole thing on the Blurb site, using their preview tool.

If you get a chance to have a look at the preview, I’d love to hear what you think. I may create a PDF version for download sometime, but that will require a completely revised layout. Blurb’s “auto PDF” generator produces truly abysmal results.

Wow. I’m a (self) published author now!

A little while ago, we spent a long weekend in the town of Pietrasanta, in northwestern Tuscany, a little way away from the millionaire’s playground, and capital of bling, Forti die Marmi. Pietrasanta is nothing like that hyper-sanitised enclave, fortunately, but a rather surprisingly well-kept secret outside of the flow of mass tourism. Although it has a rather shady past, these days Pietrasanta is a thriving artistic and cultural community, and home to some well-know names such as Fernando Botero and, until recently, Igor Mitoraj. It was actually through an interview with Botero that we found out about Pietrasanta.

Models for Botero’s Adam and Eve, in the Museo dei Bozzetti

Pietrasanta is just down the road from the Carrara marble quarries, which have provided the source material for notable artists and architects for centuries, including of course Michelangelo. And marble is much in evidence in the town.  The old centre is perhaps a little tidier than the average Italian town, but is full of the usual nooks, crannies and idiosyncrasies which make these places so rewarding to wander around, camera in hand.

Here, then, are a few examples.

Last weekend, we went off for a weekend’s skiing in Andermatt, about an hour away. Due to combinations of fog, wind and headaches, we didn’t exactly overdose on the slopes, but a walk up the valley, initially in a snowstorm, but later in the afternoon with the sun breaking through, turned into a totally impromptu photo session.

The best camera, as they say, is the one you have with you, and in my case the Ricoh GR I had slipped into my pocket is quite possibly the best I have from a purely image quality point of view. Possibly even beats the Sigmas. But sadly, lacking an accurate eye-level viewfinder, in this kind of light and conditions, even with the very bright screen, composition often boils down to guesswork.

Anyway, I’m quite pleased with this little haul. Unexpected, and pretty satisfying.

Bored with cameras now, time for some more holiday snaps. This batch-ette comes from a stroll along the slightly restored Camino Reale from Barichara to Guane. The chorus to this song was the perfect mental soundtrack ... actually the verses are too, in a slightly unsettling way, given the all too recent past.

Anyways, I’m getting sidetracked again. Here are the pictures. I know, it’s not gear, but it’s the best I can do.

Oh yeah, gear.  All this lot are down to the electronickal magickality of the Olympus E-P5 and two kit zooms. Nothing to see here, move along please.