Malta I


The Azure Window

Le Blurb has arrived …

Today was the day …

The Family Travel Book of our Trip to Portugal we have been working on for the last 6 months and sent to Blurb for printing two weeks ago did arrive today at the post (here in Sweden UPS delivers to the Swedish Post, so I could see on the UPS tracker it was printed in The Netherlands and on Swedish Ground since Friday).

So, off we went to pick up the package, and took it home for some closer inspection (*).

(*) Let me upfront excuse myself for all the possible color offset in the images as taking pictures on a white table of a book always has been a challenge for me, especially when you dont have a battery of softboxes set up (which I do not have yet). So any and all ugly colors you may spot on your screen are mine, and mine alone, and not the responsibility of Blurb.

The book was nicely fitted in its package, and inside packed in another plastic folie of UPS to prevent fingerprints on the hardback cover when taking the book out (we had our gloves on, but appreciated this extra form of protection).

The envelope did a good job in getting the book safely overhere and no damage was detected.

I must say that I was happy that I had a pair of gloves on, as I am not sure that the matte finish on the black cover will stay spotless when it has gone through some hands in the upcoming party we are having, and the book will be on the coffee table (where it was designed for).

We will report back on this once we have tested it, but the matte imagewrap looks very impressive.

When I opened the book I was really taken by surprise of the great colors and sharpeness, and was very happy surprised with the result.
We decided to give most of the images a bleached wash, to tone down the colors, and … it worked.

Really... not kidding.

We went through the whole book (105 pages) with great care and we did spot one printing error, where we have a blue color spot on the page.

But besides this ink error I must say I am very impressed by the detail and result of the printing as a whole, and actually this error lifts up the overall quality in a kinky way.

This really felt as a real book.

The images were as I wanted them (did it help I created the Blurb on a iMac and not on my laptop ?) and I must say that was for me really the big challenge, as getting from screen to print, is just such a big leap (and the below does not reflect the colors, as our table is white ;-))

Even big black areas were nicely filled and images did not turn out to be too dark either as we read on another blog.

And even the more colorful pictures we included were spot on as I wanted them, and Aye, the lens flare was there, and on purpose.

So, can I recommend Blurb ?

Yes, they do get a big 4 Stars on this one …

The only downside one could see was the rather high price tag for this beauty (but hey our pictures do deserve the best).

Almost a hundred Euro (or 95 € to be exact, shipping included), but given that the result was really above my expectations, it was a 100 well spent and for sure there will be a next book, with a larger target audience (we took the easy way out and had a family audience in mind for this one with a twist).

Now, which book should I try to make next ?

The winning suggestion gets a signed copy 🙂


Mss. Friedland, I assume …

I had this one stacked up still from our Portugal trip, when I bumped into these little doorbells somewhere in a non disclosed area in Coimbra where Mss. Friedland is living.
Most amusing, and when I decided today to finally sign up for Flickr (after 7 years of amusement on the one who choos’d the name and the color code when you compare it with dutch cultural awareness and the similarity with the word flikker) I noted I could actually sign up not with a Yahoo account, but with my Google Account.
Seeing Yahoo retrieving my Google account, and accepting the fact the battle on global identities is reaching a next stage made me think back of Mss. Friedland doorbells.
It does not really matter what bell you ring, the door will open, and access will be granted (or denied).

Bleached


Crew Shooting …

As I mentioned this morning on twitter it really felt like shooting weather today after 3 days of grey clouds and some snowfall (and not getting a real shot for the last 6 months).
So when we came back from shopping, and had a quick lunch we took the two D’s out for a short walk.
We almost missed our window of opportunity cause the sun was falling fast at 3 a clock in the afternoon, but I think both me and Kalle managed to take some nice shots (as you can see it at the serious smile below when Kalle was examing his shot)

Maybe not the best, and a little bit rushed, but always good when you can get the “PICZ” vibe running in the family.
Postprocessing the sunsets, and will publish some on the archipelago blog.
Stay tuned !

Underground

Dive …

Happy 1179

A wonderfull and great 1179 or was it 2011 ?!?

As I mentioned a little while back, the really latest picz I had was from the Portugal trip, and this little arrogant angel is looking out over the square of Alcobaca while sitting on top of the cathedral …

Timeless …

A great 2011 to all of our Friends out there …

Snow II

Snow