Random Excellence: R. Hamilton Schirmer

Ham Schirmer, Deke's Sailboat

In the interests of full disclosure, Ham's a cousin, and I'm a sucker for sailboats, which I think are often among the most graceful and lovely of all Man's fabrications. I came across this because Ham used it for the cover of an iPhoto book he made recently of his favorite pictures. Slightly cropped (from the bottom, if memory serves), it makes a very good looking book cover.

I hadn't recently seen an iPhoto book (which you can make and order for $30 from within iPhoto '09, which is part of iLife '09, which comes bundled with Macs), and I was impressed with the quality. The last bespoke photo book I made myself was through lulu.com, and the pictures in it had the look of high-quality color Xeroxes; Ham's hardcover had repro more like middling-quality offset—in other words, pretty darn good. If you have an Apple, you ought to try this. (Unless you've already made half a dozen and I'm just late to the party. Come to think of it, Nick Hartmann has been telling me about Apple books for months now....)

Ham made the shot with an Olympus C-5050z at 1/500th sec. at ƒ/4, ISO 64.

Mike

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Featured Comment by Ernest Theisen: "I tried to use the previous version of iPhoto and it gave me fits so I went to MyPublisher and I got good results. I was told that MyPublisher makes the books for Apple's iPhoto."

Comments

[John Sartin]

Living in the Sonoran Desert most of my life I am strangely fascinated by sailboats and hope to learn to sail before I check out. I am so happy you had a break and even more happy you are back. I missed you here!

[Jeff]

Nice shot. However, it reminds me of my early 90's workshop with the late Fred Picker. He rudely dismissed any boat photos! Ah, curmudgeonly Fred...I miss him.

[Jeff Grant]

Boats are also one of the most difficult subjects to photograph. The little buggers never stand still. I have dumped more boat images than I would care to mention because of movement. Having said that, this is just beautiful.

[Douglas Urner]

Do you happen to know what kind of sailboat that is? It bears more than a passing resemblance to the Cape Cod Nimblet that I grew up with. Alas, I haven't seen one of those in years.

[Arthur Gross]

Hi Mike,

I created a book recently for submission to the Blurb.com - Photography Book Now - competition and was very impressed with the print quality. Blurb has a strong focus on photo books and the Photography Book Now competition that they co-sponsor (now in its second year) really seems to be catching on. This year over 2200 photographers created books for the competition. Browsing through the book previews on Blurb's site, it looks like photographers are starting to consider these POD “print on demand” services as a serious outlet for their work. Many of the submissions not only feature great photography but also very thoughtful book design. There are still some drawbacks. The price per book can be quite high, and photographers must create their own demand if they are interested in selling books. Still POD printers are providing an interesting new outlet for photographers.

Regards,
Arthur Gross

PS
the link to this year's Photography Book Now submissions...
http://www.blurb.com/bookstore/pbn
my book at Blurb/Photography Book Now...
http://www.blurb.com/bookstore/detail/765922

[Eolake Stobblehouse]

Yes, the iPhoto books are very good, and a good way to sell limited edition photobooks. If you just have a handful of fans, you can make a small profit, instead of a big loss as you'd do with offset.

[emptyspaces]

I second the votes for both the iPhoto books and the Blurb books. Photobooks make a superb way to share baby photos with family.

[Ernest Theisen]

I tried to use the previous version of iPhoto and it gave me fits so I went to My Publisher and I got good results. I was told that My Publisher makes the books for Apple's iPhoto. E

[Bron Janulis]

What a lovely "Luminist" photograph!

[JohnL]

Among all the hype about the charms or otherwise of sailboats and the usefulness of self publish books, I did warm to the knowledge that such a lovely image was taken with the good old C-5050Z.
With the talk over the years about the ultimate camera to suit all needs etc I feel the purpose is becoming clouded - it is the image that matters, not the all seeing all dancing camera.

[Gary Haigh]

I'm on my fourth iPhoto book and am impressed with the quality.
In fact I have bought a scanner to scan my best b&w's from many years of photography and will put them in an iPhoto book. I carry these small books when I travel and people can see what I do.

Regards,

Gary Haigh
OZ

[hugh crawford]

High-quality color Xeroxes are pretty amazing these days. I had some postcards printed on one for a show recently and I liked the quality of a couple of the images more than the 12-ink inkjet prints on expensive paper that I hung.