The Book

The Capitals book has been around for more than a month and only now I feel compelled to blog about it. The feeling that goes with producing a first book reminds me of getting a first child. You can talk a long time about it but until it is really there it remains an abstraction. 

I'm really happy I went through with the Capitals project until the very end. Even if I don't sell a single copy, then this won't change my perception. I've made the book because I felt like doing it and because I looked forward to giving away something simple and beautiful.  That and nothing else has been the deeper purpose of producing this book. 

And that seems to be the way people respond to it. I was gratified to receive a message from a good friend who wrote: "I just received your 27 European Capitals book and am stunned by its simplicity and beauty and all the echoes that attend both, as I look through your book. What a treasure! Thank you so much for doing it and so very much for giving me a copy. I am deeply honoured." Such a response in itself is reward enough. I can only hope that the book will continue add a little bit of sparkle to my relationships with people I value. 

Apart from the relational dimension, I experience a psychological shift too. The book is not perfect, but I am proud of it. Suddenly I see myself as a photographer. In the past years I always had trouble considering myself as a "photographer", let alone as an artist. I still consider "artist" to be a suspect epithet, but I have now, suddenly, reconciled myself with the fact that I am a photographer. This, in itself, has not a lot to do with pride. Am I proud to be a father? Well, yes, once in a while. But there's a more subterranean feeling of knowing that I am a father that goes with having deeply internalised the joys and responsibilities of fatherhood. With the book, a similar shift has pushed me into photographer-hood. I am quite sure that this is going to influence the way I practice the craft and the way with which I position myself towards the outside world. Let's see where it leads me. 

Now that the book is here, I need to find a way to get rid of these 1000 copies (they are actually lying around in our house; Ann is not happy). I can give a few hundreds of copies. I have activated the sales area of my topophotography website. And I have personally started to distribute the book to selected bookshops here in the area. It's all very time and labour intensive, but it's enjoyable and it's going to open up new opportunities, I am sure.