**A Photographic Journey: Reflections on Travel and Photography**

I recently had the pleasure of acquiring a Sony Alpha 350 camera, which I purchased at an airport after being drawn to it over a Nikon. The Sony's higher megapixel count and lower price point were key factors in my decision-making process. However, as time passed, I found myself pondering what could have been if I had invested more in the camera, particularly regarding the amount of glass that could have fit inside. This realization has led to some regret over the years, especially considering my extensive travels to seven different countries multiple times.

Travel has been a significant source of inspiration for me, and I've often spoken about writing a book featuring photographs from these trips. Recently, I retired from medical work, which marks the beginning of a new chapter in my life where I can devote more time to pursuing my passion for photography and storytelling. Over the years, I've taken thousands of images, many of which have been shared on Flickr. Sorting through this vast collection was a daunting task, but I was able to make it more manageable by keeping my best shots on Flickr and creating backups using various methods.

As I delved deeper into organizing my photographs for publication, I experimented with different manufacturers and finally settled on Vistaprint. The end result is two stunning books that showcase my favorite images from around the world. I hope you enjoy these publications as much as I do!

**The Power of Feedback**

One of the most valuable tools in creating a successful book is receiving feedback from others. Recently, I shared one of my finished books with some friends, and they provided some insightful comments that I wanted to share with all of you.

While my intention behind creating these books was largely to produce one-off pieces for personal enjoyment and sharing with friends, I noticed two key aspects that could be improved upon. Firstly, the layout of each image is often tightly packed, leaving little room for breath or visual pause. In an effort to maximize page real estate, some images may become overwhelmed by too much text or information in the margins. This can distract from the primary focus of the photograph and detract from the overall viewing experience.

Secondly, I think incorporating technical details, such as captions or metadata, could enhance the book's appeal to photography enthusiasts. However, if these elements are presented in a way that feels overwhelming or cluttered, they may detract from the beauty and simplicity of the images themselves. In this case, I would suggest presenting these technical details in the back of the book or using alternative layouts to make them feel less prominent.

**A Word of Advice for Aspiring Photographers**

As someone who has worked on numerous projects, including books, I wanted to share a valuable piece of advice with all of you. If you're considering creating your first book, take a cue from artists whose work you admire and visit bookstores or online marketplaces to examine their layouts. Pay attention to how they balance text and image, and learn from the way they present their material.

In my own experience, going this route has proven to be incredibly valuable. By studying the work of others and understanding what makes their books successful, I've been able to create publications that are both meaningful and aesthetically pleasing.

**Conclusion**

I hope you've enjoyed these reflections on photography, travel, and book creation. As always, I appreciate your thoughtful comments and feedback – please don't hesitate to reach out with any questions or suggestions. Until next time, when we'll be discussing more about the world of photography and book creation, take care, and happy travels!

"WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: enthis video is brought to you by Squarespace all right it's Friday welcome back I want to start off with a little show and tell so on Saturday with a little field trip over to the modern which is one of our beautiful art museums here in Fort Worth went over there because they were doing the atsukimi Moon Festival which is this wonderful thing where the museum is open past dark and you get to go outside and they have this kind of moat-ish pond that goes around the museum and we were launching these little luminarios into the water it was really cool I shot all this on the Leica M11 now what is interesting about this is after that sun went down it was getting really dark and I had an F2 maximum aperture lens on this camera and so I was really pushing this I mean it was really low light and all these shots are like at 12 500 ISO and I gotta say it handled it impressively well and I think it has a lot to do with the processor that they put in that camera now one observation about this whole experience and I say this as a member of the modern and this is just constructive criticism but I think that if you're going to do a Moon Festival it might be more effective to have it on a night where you can actually see the moon that stuff is really kind of predictable and easy to look up online I'm just saying again just a little piece of constructive criticism other than that it was fun got some cool shots anyway today we are going to get to some of your cool shots because we're going to look at some mail without further Ado let's get to it you know technically it is a full moon right now I'm just saying it should be on a night when the moon is actually above the Horizon so you can see it but I digress first up we have two little zines and these are really awesome this comes to us from annistar we have two issues here this is plastic perspective issues one and two and Anna sends a note which reads hi Ted my name is Anna and I'm a hobby holga photographer I found out about your channel when my followers recommended I send you my Zine when I search through your channel and saw my favorite camera ever made and a photo of a holga I knew that I was in the right place I am the creator of a holgerzine called plastic perspective I started this project last fall on a whim one of my main motivations was never having my own holga photos accepted into any Zine that I applied for so I just made my own it is my pleasure to share it with you plastic perspective is a celebration of all the Intriguing and inspiring things you can do with a plastic Holger camera some of the photographers that I feature are Avid hoga Shooters others brought theirs out of deep storage just to try it out again for the zine between the two issues so far I've featured 85 photographers from 11 countries 17 U.S states using 11 different types of holgas plastic perspective is split into two parts you'll see my own intro and photography in the first half and featured photographers in the second half please be sure to look at the photographer list on the last page I hope that you see something special in these photos that reminds you of why hogas are one of your favorite cameras maybe you'll even be inspired to make another holga video soon if you want to know more about the project myself or my photography feel free to reach out cheers and a star I will put her details in the show description below this video and these books are absolutely fabulous they are very inspiring and just talk just a second because a couple points I want to make so this is important because I think this is something everyone should learn from so Anna was sending her photos trying to get accepted into other zines it wasn't happening so what'd she do she made her own like that is the most amazing thing about the world we live in today is that we have the opportunities in fact I think one of the saddest things that I see are there are so many opportunities out there that most people are just too close to the force to see the trees so to speak and so they just don't pursue them and this is a great idea and you've done a wonderful job on these second of all I want to talk a little bit about the holga so yes the holga is still my favorite camera ever made in fact this is so inspiring I'll tell you what before the end of the year I will do another holga video I know that this is a weird time of the year and this is when all the new products are coming out and so we tend to have a little bit heavy emphasis on things like iPhones and hasselblads and leica's and so on so forth so for those of you who don't know holga is just this plastic camera that takes medium format film it's one of my favorite cameras because it's not supposed to be any good it's all made of plastic it's just got this single one element lens in it that is also plastic every hole has a different look to it but it's about embracing those imperfections you can see that in all these photos and it's also very cumbersome and weird and unnatural to shoot on so it is one of the best learning cameras I think for anybody out there anyway Anna excellent work I will put a link in the show description once again so you guys go check her out thanks for sending these all right next up is this beautiful book I really love this this is comes to us from baudian Gupta I believe is how you say your name it's called on acetate experiments in film and about John writes dear Ted I am sending you a copy of on acetate which is my first and so far my only Zine that I made with my photography I don't really expect this scene to be special enough that it's worthy of taking up time on one of your videos okay right about about don't say that don't say we have this rule here at the Art of Photography you never apologize for a photograph you sent it believe in it anyway I'm gonna go on however I am sending this to you because of what it means to me and that your videos played a significant part during this phase of My Life the Story of this scene is that I moved to the city of Heidelberg in Germany in late 2018 and went to the supermarket for the first time and found that they were selling film I immediately picked some up went home and started looking for cameras that I could use with my existing digital camera lenses I'd never shot with film before except for when I was five or six years old and I played with my father's old yashiko Electro 35 on family holiday so this was something that I knew nothing about that I had to teach myself from scratch okay I'm gonna paraphrase just a little bit of this next part because it is something that is very personal but long story short bowed like most of us has dealt with some personal issues and photography was what helped him get through them I love this and I really flattered that he mentions in here that my YouTube channel was a big part of this and the whole learning process and this whole journey through what seemingly is a messy part of life into something that you come through the other side a better person for about this is a gorgeous book and I kind of was half joking when I said don't apologize the beginning I mean don't apologize ever you have nothing to apologize for this is fantastic I'm really flattered that you're telling me that I was a part of that and the videos that I make were helping educate you that's exactly why I make these it's like you know any hobby then a creative sense whether you like pick up watercolor painting or whether you enjoy photography or maybe you like sculpture or building Furniture whatever that is it's just so important to the completion I believe of having a full life it's just something that it's in my opinion it's something that is absolutely essential it's mandatory it's what keeps us together it's what keeps us sane in fact if I may be as bold as to give you an unsolicited critique here there are three images in here that I want to point out and I think that these are just absolutely stunning the first two are these train images this is the first one it's just peering through a little opening here and there's another one that I think relates to it which is also a train image that's looking between two seats all you see is a gentleman's arm as he's probably writing you see a lot of depth there's layers going on and I think maybe to a slightly lesser extent but the same Vibe this image of these bicycles here this is something that I feel like of all the work that you've done in here I mean it's all strong those three images are particularly strong and what they remind me of is something that Ralph Gibson has talked to me about before and it's essentially when you end up with a photograph that on the surface is a photograph of nothing but it has enough of that depth in those layers and that Intrigue into it where it gets your mind working you start thinking about it and I would definitely take that as a starting point for your next move in photography and really try to capitalize on that anyway the whole book is gorgeous I really appreciate you being open enough to tell me the story in here and I will link up to his work below I don't know if you left me Instagram or not on here but I will figure it out hopefully and uh many thanks for sending this appreciate it unsolicited critique it's something I don't normally do on here for a number of reasons and I've talked about it before it's it's hard when people send me work and I'm not sitting down with them face to face to ask them what their goals are and all that stuff I've talked about that before and I actually have some things that I want to say unsolicited about these next couple books that have come in because I think they're things that we can all learn from and believe me they're positive but I've got two more I want to show you but real quick I want to give a shout out to our sponsor today who are the always awesome folks over at Squarespace listen you need a website and we all know how much work that is to build and maintain but it doesn't have to be Squarespace is by far the easiest way to build your online presence it's also the best way to grow a business that works for you without having to write a single line of code do you just need a simple portfolio or a Blog to Showcase your work well Squarespace is perfect featuring a drag and drop interface it's intuitive it allows you to build galleries quickly and update your site with ease are you running a business well Squarespace gives you additional tools for things like appointment scheduling private member areas social media tools and even Advanced email marketing do you sell products or Services well Squarespace has you covered with complete tools to power your store for merchandising to check out so that you can sell ship and build your customer base you can even sell classes or manage appointments through your website and with Squarespace extensions you can easily sync with third parties to manage optimize and enhance your website from social media integration to SEO Squarespace gives you all the tools you need to grow a business that works for you so head over to Squarespace and sign up for the free trial start with one of their award-winning templates and see what you can create and just how good you're going to look when you're ready to launch go to squarespace.com aop and I can save you an additional 10 off your first purchase of a website or domain just use offer code aop on checkout so give it a try and see if Squarespace is right for you and I want to give a special shout out and thank you to Squarespace for sponsoring this video okay next up we have a set of zines there are two additions of this that come to us from Lee Griffith we have 35 days of War a visual diary as well as 35 more days of War a visual diary and I'm going to read you a little of Lee's note that he included which reads Dear Mr Forbes I have been an avid fan of your channel for a number of years it is certainly one of the best and most informative photography channels out there a while ago you posted a YouTube video about skylum and their request for drones to support Ukraine it was very informative and very good since the outbreak of the war in in Ukraine I have been posting a photo a day and thought I would match it on my Instagram Channel which I will link below I have a few followers but I thought it was something I could do I take a lot of photos I write sometimes professionally but mostly just for myself so I thought my photo essays might get some response and help in some way friends of mine convinced me to self-publish these days as photos essays on Amazon KDP I started with 35 days as a cutoff point so the books themselves would not be too long nor too straining I had hoped I would only publish one volume now I've already published two and the third is with my editor who is my daughter luckily and I'm afraid that there will also be a fourth you have already shown your support for the cause of Ukraine and I thought I would send you the two published volumes 35 days of War visual diary 35 more days of War a visual diary I realized that you have many things on your plate but I hope you get the time to read and pursue them a bit I'm sure that you will enjoy them take care and enjoy the Texas summer yours Lee Lee my friend I'm afraid that I'm about done and joining the Texas summer this year so it started really early here like in May it was already triple digits it's rained like once all summer and now it's hot again and it's September so it's like Summer's still here why it needs to move on thanks for these two scenes they really look good and for a first two efforts in publishing I think you're doing an excellent job my best advice on something like this is to keep doing it do it more and more you're going to get better and better as you go I think this is an awesome cause I will put a link in the show description for anybody who wants to get some cool scenes and donate to a great cause there's a lot of really cool stuff in here I like the idea of combining text and images um the only thing I would say is that your format although it is very good I would be very careful of one thing in here so the format kind of goes that this is a picture of something you see the picture and there's a description and some metaphorical information that he gives in here but this one says this isn't the greatest photo remember we we have a little rule here at the Art of Photography we don't apologize for photos right I need everyone to repeat after me never apologize for a photograph not a whole video on that actually but on all seriousness I love the idea of combining the words and the images I think you're off to an awesome start to keep doing it these are beautiful so thanks for sendingly much appreciated next up we've got two books that are rather large they come to us from Dion we have Japan May 2015 and April 2018 as well as 50th birthday alluru trip May 2016. Dion also writes a note which reads hi Ted I've been doing photography since the mid-1990s I used to own a lot of Minolta equipment and even an a7000 with the first a-mount lenses it eventually became a dollar a print and a roll of 36 shots was 38 Australian just to get developed so I wasn't working at the time I sold it all off something I would later regret in 2000 I bought my first so-called digital camera with a whopping .3 megapixels for the next 10 years I used various point-and-shoot mostly digital cameras in 2010 while being sent to Sandy Diego for work I bought a Sony a350 at the airport I was looking at Nikon but the Sony had more megapixels lower price anyway later I found that the amount glass could have fitted this camera and that is where my regret in selling everything that I had comes from over the years though I have traveled to seven different countries multiple times and I keep saying that one day I should do a book on these places well recently I retired from medical ground and that means that that one day is here these are two of the books that I've done with over a million images to sort through it was not easy to decide which ones to use the process was made a lot easier as I always kept my best images on Flickr just finding the originals and all the different backups was harder to do a noon ass and better backup structure resulted from this in the process of doing these books I tried four different manufacturers and eventually settled on Vistaprint the pages sort of look like photos and a friend said you could cut a page out and even frame it I hope that you enjoy these books regards Dion Dion these are absolutely gorgeous and since we're in the mood for unsolicited advice today just a couple pointers that I think would take these up a notch in terms of quality okay and this is actually a perfect example of what I'm talking about when I say I really need to be face to face with the person because I want to know what the intention of these books was so if the intention of these books is just to have one-offs that you can collect and be able to remember things and maybe show to some friends then maybe this is what you want to do but one thing I have noticed and I see this a lot in books that are sent to me it's just something that I want to make that's just a little small point that could make this a little better even but everything is labeled below the photograph first of all and the other thing is the photograph uses as much of the page as physically possible now I understand that you want your photographs to look good you want them to sing you want them to reach out letting them breathe a little bit there's a lot to be said for that rather than trying to maximize all of the real estate On Any Given page just let it breathe a little bit and the other thing is I think some of the technical details if you're trying to make this more of a work of art type of book I think you could probably maybe put those in the back or find another way to present them you've got some really strong work in here and the printing quality is amazing on these I think the layout is very strong but I think that is if I were to make just a little suggestion on that let things breathe a little bit it's okay to have a white border around an image and then watch out for too much text and stuff that tends to distract the viewer from looking at the image because the images are really gorgeous and you want to see them and not be distracted by what each one of them is about and what the date was and all that anyway just a little piece of advice all I'm saying I see that a lot in books and actually I mean I've seen it too with people who are kind of pro photographers who do their first book and everything is crammed in there and it's full bleed images on every page things get lost in the gutter just because they've never made a book before there's nothing wrong with that and that's of course how we learn and how we move forward but the best piece of advice that I could give to anyone that's putting a book together is go to the bookstore even if you go to the used bookstore or shop on Amazon buy you stuff I don't know find an inexpensive way to look at artists whose work you admire and go look at the layout of their books see what they're doing see what works that's an excellent way to learn anyway Dion these are beautiful books I love the color Renditions in here the glossy Pages everything else looks amazing and thus ends another successful Mail Time guys let me know what you think about just little minor critiques it's just something that I I was bad I'm feeling spicy today I just had to stick those in there um I don't normally do that and one of the main reasons I don't is because people have been nice enough to send stuff into me and I don't want to risk saying something that they will take in the wrong context and be insulted I'm just really careful about all that I know there's some YouTubers who love to get Rapid Fire reviews and just tear the bejesus out of everything and that is really not me it never has been and probably never will be but I would love to know what you guys think on that drop me a comment below I'll see you guys in the next video Until then laterthis video is brought to you by Squarespace all right it's Friday welcome back I want to start off with a little show and tell so on Saturday with a little field trip over to the modern which is one of our beautiful art museums here in Fort Worth went over there because they were doing the atsukimi Moon Festival which is this wonderful thing where the museum is open past dark and you get to go outside and they have this kind of moat-ish pond that goes around the museum and we were launching these little luminarios into the water it was really cool I shot all this on the Leica M11 now what is interesting about this is after that sun went down it was getting really dark and I had an F2 maximum aperture lens on this camera and so I was really pushing this I mean it was really low light and all these shots are like at 12 500 ISO and I gotta say it handled it impressively well and I think it has a lot to do with the processor that they put in that camera now one observation about this whole experience and I say this as a member of the modern and this is just constructive criticism but I think that if you're going to do a Moon Festival it might be more effective to have it on a night where you can actually see the moon that stuff is really kind of predictable and easy to look up online I'm just saying again just a little piece of constructive criticism other than that it was fun got some cool shots anyway today we are going to get to some of your cool shots because we're going to look at some mail without further Ado let's get to it you know technically it is a full moon right now I'm just saying it should be on a night when the moon is actually above the Horizon so you can see it but I digress first up we have two little zines and these are really awesome this comes to us from annistar we have two issues here this is plastic perspective issues one and two and Anna sends a note which reads hi Ted my name is Anna and I'm a hobby holga photographer I found out about your channel when my followers recommended I send you my Zine when I search through your channel and saw my favorite camera ever made and a photo of a holga I knew that I was in the right place I am the creator of a holgerzine called plastic perspective I started this project last fall on a whim one of my main motivations was never having my own holga photos accepted into any Zine that I applied for so I just made my own it is my pleasure to share it with you plastic perspective is a celebration of all the Intriguing and inspiring things you can do with a plastic Holger camera some of the photographers that I feature are Avid hoga Shooters others brought theirs out of deep storage just to try it out again for the zine between the two issues so far I've featured 85 photographers from 11 countries 17 U.S states using 11 different types of holgas plastic perspective is split into two parts you'll see my own intro and photography in the first half and featured photographers in the second half please be sure to look at the photographer list on the last page I hope that you see something special in these photos that reminds you of why hogas are one of your favorite cameras maybe you'll even be inspired to make another holga video soon if you want to know more about the project myself or my photography feel free to reach out cheers and a star I will put her details in the show description below this video and these books are absolutely fabulous they are very inspiring and just talk just a second because a couple points I want to make so this is important because I think this is something everyone should learn from so Anna was sending her photos trying to get accepted into other zines it wasn't happening so what'd she do she made her own like that is the most amazing thing about the world we live in today is that we have the opportunities in fact I think one of the saddest things that I see are there are so many opportunities out there that most people are just too close to the force to see the trees so to speak and so they just don't pursue them and this is a great idea and you've done a wonderful job on these second of all I want to talk a little bit about the holga so yes the holga is still my favorite camera ever made in fact this is so inspiring I'll tell you what before the end of the year I will do another holga video I know that this is a weird time of the year and this is when all the new products are coming out and so we tend to have a little bit heavy emphasis on things like iPhones and hasselblads and leica's and so on so forth so for those of you who don't know holga is just this plastic camera that takes medium format film it's one of my favorite cameras because it's not supposed to be any good it's all made of plastic it's just got this single one element lens in it that is also plastic every hole has a different look to it but it's about embracing those imperfections you can see that in all these photos and it's also very cumbersome and weird and unnatural to shoot on so it is one of the best learning cameras I think for anybody out there anyway Anna excellent work I will put a link in the show description once again so you guys go check her out thanks for sending these all right next up is this beautiful book I really love this this is comes to us from baudian Gupta I believe is how you say your name it's called on acetate experiments in film and about John writes dear Ted I am sending you a copy of on acetate which is my first and so far my only Zine that I made with my photography I don't really expect this scene to be special enough that it's worthy of taking up time on one of your videos okay right about about don't say that don't say we have this rule here at the Art of Photography you never apologize for a photograph you sent it believe in it anyway I'm gonna go on however I am sending this to you because of what it means to me and that your videos played a significant part during this phase of My Life the Story of this scene is that I moved to the city of Heidelberg in Germany in late 2018 and went to the supermarket for the first time and found that they were selling film I immediately picked some up went home and started looking for cameras that I could use with my existing digital camera lenses I'd never shot with film before except for when I was five or six years old and I played with my father's old yashiko Electro 35 on family holiday so this was something that I knew nothing about that I had to teach myself from scratch okay I'm gonna paraphrase just a little bit of this next part because it is something that is very personal but long story short bowed like most of us has dealt with some personal issues and photography was what helped him get through them I love this and I really flattered that he mentions in here that my YouTube channel was a big part of this and the whole learning process and this whole journey through what seemingly is a messy part of life into something that you come through the other side a better person for about this is a gorgeous book and I kind of was half joking when I said don't apologize the beginning I mean don't apologize ever you have nothing to apologize for this is fantastic I'm really flattered that you're telling me that I was a part of that and the videos that I make were helping educate you that's exactly why I make these it's like you know any hobby then a creative sense whether you like pick up watercolor painting or whether you enjoy photography or maybe you like sculpture or building Furniture whatever that is it's just so important to the completion I believe of having a full life it's just something that it's in my opinion it's something that is absolutely essential it's mandatory it's what keeps us together it's what keeps us sane in fact if I may be as bold as to give you an unsolicited critique here there are three images in here that I want to point out and I think that these are just absolutely stunning the first two are these train images this is the first one it's just peering through a little opening here and there's another one that I think relates to it which is also a train image that's looking between two seats all you see is a gentleman's arm as he's probably writing you see a lot of depth there's layers going on and I think maybe to a slightly lesser extent but the same Vibe this image of these bicycles here this is something that I feel like of all the work that you've done in here I mean it's all strong those three images are particularly strong and what they remind me of is something that Ralph Gibson has talked to me about before and it's essentially when you end up with a photograph that on the surface is a photograph of nothing but it has enough of that depth in those layers and that Intrigue into it where it gets your mind working you start thinking about it and I would definitely take that as a starting point for your next move in photography and really try to capitalize on that anyway the whole book is gorgeous I really appreciate you being open enough to tell me the story in here and I will link up to his work below I don't know if you left me Instagram or not on here but I will figure it out hopefully and uh many thanks for sending this appreciate it unsolicited critique it's something I don't normally do on here for a number of reasons and I've talked about it before it's it's hard when people send me work and I'm not sitting down with them face to face to ask them what their goals are and all that stuff I've talked about that before and I actually have some things that I want to say unsolicited about these next couple books that have come in because I think they're things that we can all learn from and believe me they're positive but I've got two more I want to show you but real quick I want to give a shout out to our sponsor today who are the always awesome folks over at Squarespace listen you need a website and we all know how much work that is to build and maintain but it doesn't have to be Squarespace is by far the easiest way to build your online presence it's also the best way to grow a business that works for you without having to write a single line of code do you just need a simple portfolio or a Blog to Showcase your work well Squarespace is perfect featuring a drag and drop interface it's intuitive it allows you to build galleries quickly and update your site with ease are you running a business well Squarespace gives you additional tools for things like appointment scheduling private member areas social media tools and even Advanced email marketing do you sell products or Services well Squarespace has you covered with complete tools to power your store for merchandising to check out so that you can sell ship and build your customer base you can even sell classes or manage appointments through your website and with Squarespace extensions you can easily sync with third parties to manage optimize and enhance your website from social media integration to SEO Squarespace gives you all the tools you need to grow a business that works for you so head over to Squarespace and sign up for the free trial start with one of their award-winning templates and see what you can create and just how good you're going to look when you're ready to launch go to squarespace.com aop and I can save you an additional 10 off your first purchase of a website or domain just use offer code aop on checkout so give it a try and see if Squarespace is right for you and I want to give a special shout out and thank you to Squarespace for sponsoring this video okay next up we have a set of zines there are two additions of this that come to us from Lee Griffith we have 35 days of War a visual diary as well as 35 more days of War a visual diary and I'm going to read you a little of Lee's note that he included which reads Dear Mr Forbes I have been an avid fan of your channel for a number of years it is certainly one of the best and most informative photography channels out there a while ago you posted a YouTube video about skylum and their request for drones to support Ukraine it was very informative and very good since the outbreak of the war in in Ukraine I have been posting a photo a day and thought I would match it on my Instagram Channel which I will link below I have a few followers but I thought it was something I could do I take a lot of photos I write sometimes professionally but mostly just for myself so I thought my photo essays might get some response and help in some way friends of mine convinced me to self-publish these days as photos essays on Amazon KDP I started with 35 days as a cutoff point so the books themselves would not be too long nor too straining I had hoped I would only publish one volume now I've already published two and the third is with my editor who is my daughter luckily and I'm afraid that there will also be a fourth you have already shown your support for the cause of Ukraine and I thought I would send you the two published volumes 35 days of War visual diary 35 more days of War a visual diary I realized that you have many things on your plate but I hope you get the time to read and pursue them a bit I'm sure that you will enjoy them take care and enjoy the Texas summer yours Lee Lee my friend I'm afraid that I'm about done and joining the Texas summer this year so it started really early here like in May it was already triple digits it's rained like once all summer and now it's hot again and it's September so it's like Summer's still here why it needs to move on thanks for these two scenes they really look good and for a first two efforts in publishing I think you're doing an excellent job my best advice on something like this is to keep doing it do it more and more you're going to get better and better as you go I think this is an awesome cause I will put a link in the show description for anybody who wants to get some cool scenes and donate to a great cause there's a lot of really cool stuff in here I like the idea of combining text and images um the only thing I would say is that your format although it is very good I would be very careful of one thing in here so the format kind of goes that this is a picture of something you see the picture and there's a description and some metaphorical information that he gives in here but this one says this isn't the greatest photo remember we we have a little rule here at the Art of Photography we don't apologize for photos right I need everyone to repeat after me never apologize for a photograph not a whole video on that actually but on all seriousness I love the idea of combining the words and the images I think you're off to an awesome start to keep doing it these are beautiful so thanks for sendingly much appreciated next up we've got two books that are rather large they come to us from Dion we have Japan May 2015 and April 2018 as well as 50th birthday alluru trip May 2016. Dion also writes a note which reads hi Ted I've been doing photography since the mid-1990s I used to own a lot of Minolta equipment and even an a7000 with the first a-mount lenses it eventually became a dollar a print and a roll of 36 shots was 38 Australian just to get developed so I wasn't working at the time I sold it all off something I would later regret in 2000 I bought my first so-called digital camera with a whopping .3 megapixels for the next 10 years I used various point-and-shoot mostly digital cameras in 2010 while being sent to Sandy Diego for work I bought a Sony a350 at the airport I was looking at Nikon but the Sony had more megapixels lower price anyway later I found that the amount glass could have fitted this camera and that is where my regret in selling everything that I had comes from over the years though I have traveled to seven different countries multiple times and I keep saying that one day I should do a book on these places well recently I retired from medical ground and that means that that one day is here these are two of the books that I've done with over a million images to sort through it was not easy to decide which ones to use the process was made a lot easier as I always kept my best images on Flickr just finding the originals and all the different backups was harder to do a noon ass and better backup structure resulted from this in the process of doing these books I tried four different manufacturers and eventually settled on Vistaprint the pages sort of look like photos and a friend said you could cut a page out and even frame it I hope that you enjoy these books regards Dion Dion these are absolutely gorgeous and since we're in the mood for unsolicited advice today just a couple pointers that I think would take these up a notch in terms of quality okay and this is actually a perfect example of what I'm talking about when I say I really need to be face to face with the person because I want to know what the intention of these books was so if the intention of these books is just to have one-offs that you can collect and be able to remember things and maybe show to some friends then maybe this is what you want to do but one thing I have noticed and I see this a lot in books that are sent to me it's just something that I want to make that's just a little small point that could make this a little better even but everything is labeled below the photograph first of all and the other thing is the photograph uses as much of the page as physically possible now I understand that you want your photographs to look good you want them to sing you want them to reach out letting them breathe a little bit there's a lot to be said for that rather than trying to maximize all of the real estate On Any Given page just let it breathe a little bit and the other thing is I think some of the technical details if you're trying to make this more of a work of art type of book I think you could probably maybe put those in the back or find another way to present them you've got some really strong work in here and the printing quality is amazing on these I think the layout is very strong but I think that is if I were to make just a little suggestion on that let things breathe a little bit it's okay to have a white border around an image and then watch out for too much text and stuff that tends to distract the viewer from looking at the image because the images are really gorgeous and you want to see them and not be distracted by what each one of them is about and what the date was and all that anyway just a little piece of advice all I'm saying I see that a lot in books and actually I mean I've seen it too with people who are kind of pro photographers who do their first book and everything is crammed in there and it's full bleed images on every page things get lost in the gutter just because they've never made a book before there's nothing wrong with that and that's of course how we learn and how we move forward but the best piece of advice that I could give to anyone that's putting a book together is go to the bookstore even if you go to the used bookstore or shop on Amazon buy you stuff I don't know find an inexpensive way to look at artists whose work you admire and go look at the layout of their books see what they're doing see what works that's an excellent way to learn anyway Dion these are beautiful books I love the color Renditions in here the glossy Pages everything else looks amazing and thus ends another successful Mail Time guys let me know what you think about just little minor critiques it's just something that I I was bad I'm feeling spicy today I just had to stick those in there um I don't normally do that and one of the main reasons I don't is because people have been nice enough to send stuff into me and I don't want to risk saying something that they will take in the wrong context and be insulted I'm just really careful about all that I know there's some YouTubers who love to get Rapid Fire reviews and just tear the bejesus out of everything and that is really not me it never has been and probably never will be but I would love to know what you guys think on that drop me a comment below I'll see you guys in the next video Until then later\n"