Dan,
As an owner of your great NY book, I'd like to offer some constructive comment. I don't think the Blurb rendering of the photos (at least on the screen preview) is anything like what you have in the NY book. There seems to be a graininess that's just not there in the NY book. The images also don't seem to have anywhere near the tonality that the NY book does - most likely the duotones - but I'm not so familiar with Blurb production so maybe others can comment.
What you're seeing are the previews generated by Blurb to use less bandwidth -- an eBook, pdf, or printed piece would be better than the preview. And yes, absolutely -- the printing on Never Seeing Nothing, thanks to the printer (great paper and duotones), my publisher (inkBooks) and good scans -- is some of the best I've seen.
When I look at the two images you posted above, the tonality is definitely there. It's a smoothness of the midtowns coupled with deep detailed shadows that makes it for me.
Yes. And that's going from a 300 Dpi 30 x 30" or 45 x 30.5" grayscale tiff to a 1140 px or 20" 72 dpi rgb jpeg and saved for web at high 60 quality -- posted to Tumblr and websource url'd to here.
I think one has to also consider that the NY book is from a longer time period and greater image pool, so it's a potentially stronger work since it has more source to edit from.
Agree totally! I sent the publisher 650 photos (edited down from about 2000), taken over a 5-year period, 1800 rolls and then edited by publisher's partner to 95 photos -- so yeah, you can't compare to 1 week's output 75 rolls. The Blurb experience for me is about seeing what I got over a limited time frame, editing, and learning for the next one.
Overall, I like the images, but the above I describe for production differences is somewhat of a barrier when added to the Blurb price.
Definitely. My hope is some people would get the eBook for $9.99. But that never pans out. And paramount is always to share what I saw. I have a lot of history with LA, and I needed to spend a week there very badly -- it's hard to describe. I never expect anyone to get the Blurb book. I'm happy if they do. I made a softcover 8x10 version and ordered it today for myself with the 40% discount -- I like to have a printed copy of all my Blurb books for reference. Anyway, that's why $38 for the Never Seeing Nothing is such a good deal -- it's what the book cost to print, with packaging and incidentals. I don't make money on it. But it means a lot to me to help the publisher break even and be able to publish books with other photographers.
Thanks for giving us the link and sharing your work with us.
