During the coronavirus pandemic, I took part in one of the book-making workshops run by Lizzie Shepperd and Alex Hare.
With their help, I made my first Leporello.
Shortly afterwards, my colleague and practically neighbour, Alex Wesche, suggested I take part in a bookbinding course, which I naturally did.
As I delved into the fascinating world of bookmaking, I began to consider the need to replace my home printer with a more professional one. My printer is a four-colour inkjet and can print up to A4 size (8.27 x 11.69 inches)… until I discovered it could print sheets 21 cm (8.27 inches) wide and up to 120 cm (47,24“) long!
This expanded the possibilities for book production, as I could print different sheet sizes to create booklets for stitching and binding, although one of the main problems I still face is finding suitable paper. Although there are countless types of photo paper available for inkjet printers, it is not so easy – at least for me – to find paper with the right weight for bookmaking.
Furthermore, I believe colour management is a crucial issue. Although the printer is a simple one, being able to create the appropriate profiles for the paper and ink used allows you to achieve results that, in my opinion, are more than satisfactory.
Thus, after much trial and error, printing and binding photo books has gradually become an important part of my photographic work.
Obviously, creating a photobook is a project of some scale. Finding a theme, selecting the photos, arranging them, adding text and formatting the book using the relevant software are all tasks that take time. And at the end of all that time, you’ve produced just one book!
As I have progressed in this work, I have, in some cases, achieved a result with which I have been particularly satisfied, knowing that once the book is finished, there are always aspects that could be improved!
In such cases, I ‘ll produce small print runs, commissioning local printers to make them available to those interested at reasonable prices, given that they are photo books.
So, this is where the adventure begins. The available works will appear on this page.
I hope you enjoy them as much as I do.
Printed Books
Die Umgebung (The Outskirts)
For years, the countryside around where I live has been the setting I’ve photographed most often. Just a 15-minute walk from my front door and I find myself in the middle of a wonderful wood, home to wildlife and criss-crossed by a few streams.
Although I have photographed these outskirts in every season of the year, my favourite seasons are autumn and winter, when snow and mist blanket the landscape in a veil of calm and silence, and the world seems imbued with a serene sense of nostalgia.
I felt that presenting the photographs in black and white best captures that subdued atmosphere of calm, silence and nostalgia.