Gerald and I spent a lovely Sunday afternoon wandering around downtown Macon, resulting in an updated gallery. Take a look.
Note: the gallery is arranged chronologically, with the oldest photographs at the top.
Macon Downtown Gallery Updated
Downtown Gallery Updated (and… Updated)
As mentioned yesterday, Gerald purchased a Voigtlander Ultron 21mm f1.8 — a very nice, German-owned (Japanese-made), manual-focus lens — last month, and he was kind enough to loan it to me for a couple of days.
We — that is, the lens and I — went for a short photostroll in downtown Macon this afternoon. Check the results in the updated gallery.
Edit, 6 March, 2021: I’ve rejigged the Macon galleries, and the featured photograph from this post is now in the Macon – Miscellaneous gallery (as the Catholic church is up the hill from downtown).
Rose Hill Gallery Updated (Again)
My good friend Prof. Gerald Lucas has been collecting lenses again, and since we both shoot with Leica L-mount cameras, we’re able to share — and he was kind enough to do precisely that. (Thank you, sir!). He’s added classics like the Asahi Super-Takumar 50mm f/1.8, Olympus Zuiko 28mm f/2.8, and Юпитер-8 (Jupiter-8) 2/50. (He’s added a brand-new Voightlander Ultron 21mm f1.8, as well — nice.)
Rose Hill and Riverside serve as familiar ground for us, meaning that when new photographic tools are available, we go there to see how well we work together; the gallery is twelve years old. See the update here. Enjoy.
My 20 Favorite Book Covers of 2020
This list is simple and straightforward: these aren’t necessarily all of the best book covers of 2020, only my favorites — gathered from the combined lists of LitHub, Creative Review, NPR’s 2020 Book Concierge, and the Casual Optimist, along with sightings in the New York Times Book Review, BookRiot, and Spine Magazine. Interestingly, despite the year many of us would rather forget, the best book covers are, as usual, memorable.
My favorite, by quite a lot:
There’s no other way to put this: it’s brilliant. The Party Upstairs by Lee Conell; design by Stephanie Ross. Read about how it was put together, along with initial ideas and drafts, at Spine Magazine. Great, great stuff!
The rest, in alphabetical order:
On the one hand, exactly what you’d expect — except a) it’s a novel, and b) it’s not really what you’d expect. Nice. Design by David High.
The left and right halves here are a perfect union, and I’m a sucker for hand lettering. Design by Anna Morrison.
I can’t remember the last time I saw a two-color cover I liked so much — major kudos here. Design by Emile Mahon.
Blue tigers. Red eyes. Crooked title block. Yet somehow rich beyond easy description. (The author calls it “haunted by place.”) Design by Grace Han.
Can’t. Unsee. The. Rat. Home run of horror. Design by Wil Staehle.
Simple type that’s well executed meets brilliant original painting. Proof that less can be more, if you’ll pardon the cliché. Design by Stephen Brayda.
One of this year’s best uses of color, along with another great illustration. Design by Adalis Martinez.
This design has gotten a good deal of attention — and deservedly so. Eye-catching by fives. Design by Jamie Keenan.
Explosive. (Sorry.) Actually, I’m personally jealous of this one: it feels like one I would have done, given the sudden (and unlikely) moment of creative greatness. Design by Christine Foltzer.
The hand work on this one — both illustration and lettering — just make it. A universe of goodness. Design by Sara Wood.
Scary good. Well, just scary, really, especially for a resident of the South. Excellent design by Henry Sene Yee.
Retro style and simple typography combine to make something excellent. Suppose a cover, with design by Katy Homans.
When has one color print been more compelling? This book would stand out on any bookshelf. Imagination by Jack Smyth.
The original artwork (by Kai McCall) really grabs your attention … and then hangs on, staring straight at you. Wonderful. Design by Stephen Brayda.
Here, the simple background illustration is enormously enhanced by the choice of colors, the “heart” cutout, and typography choices. A case of 10 + 10 + 10 = 1000. Design by Lauren Peters-Collaer.
Deceptive at first glance, the colors here keep adding up (to build on a theme). Another excellent example of hand-lettering adding so much, too. Another great design by Lauren Peters-Collaer.
Unexpected choices lead to great new places here, especially with the yellow band overlaying the wolf. So, so good. Design by Rachel Willey.
No speculation here: this one takes me by storm. (Sorry.) “We are not ready nor worthy” applies to the cover, as well! Design by John Gall.
Like Weather, Zo uses illustrations to huge effect — but this time with a huge typography effect to go along with it, and lo, it works. Great design choices by Janet Hansen.
Now, let’s all survive 2021 so we can do this again!
Two Macon Galleries Updated
December photostroll, part 2! Once again, Prof. Gerald Lucas and I were out testing new camera gear. Check out the updated Riverside Cemetery gallery and the Macon Downtown gallery, both updated today. Thanks for looking.
Macon’s Rose Hill Cemetery Gallery Updated
My good friend Prof. Gerald Lucas, his friend Ernest, and I wandered around ye ol’ stomping ground: Rose Hill Cemetery, here in Macon, testing out new camera gear. See the updated gallery.
“The evolution of Biden’s visual language is a glimpse of where political branding is heading.”
Joe Biden’s Branding Was Both Traditional and Trippy, and It Looks Like the Future of Politics
AIGA’s Eye on Design takes a look at the beginnings and evolution of Joe Biden’s campaign branding. Great read.
Greenville Photography Gallery Updated
Enjoyed a photostroll in Greenville, South Carolina, with good friend Prof. Gerald Lucas. See the updated gallery here.
American Alliance of Museums: Q&A with Book Designer
After reviewing hundreds of entries every year, the jury for AAM’s annual Museum Publications Design Competition awards only one publication with the Frances Smyth-Ravenel Prize for Excellence in Publication Design, recognizing it as the best submission overall. This year, the winner is David Levinthal: War, Myth, Desire, a publication of the George Eastman Museum in Rochester, New York, designed by Design Monsters studio. We recently talked to the book’s designer, George Corsillo,to learn more about the concept behind his prizeworthy design: a four-volume retrospective of the artist David Levinthal’s photographs which took two years to complete.
Great Q&A with “The Light Collective”
An Australian group of photographers called The Light Collective has an interview in the Aussie pro photography magazine Capture. Aside from the great imagery, there’s an excellent discussion regarding what landscape photography is about, and why working together with a group can result in a sum greater than the parts.
For all interested in taking their photography to the next level, especially folks who aspire to great landscapes, its a great read.
Galleries Updated
As part of the new web site, I’ve redone the media.gileshoover.com section to better highlight the more than 5000 photographs available.
Note that those items are available as prints, framed or unframed, starting at a very reasonable $5. My web commerce provider, Zenfolio, also offers museum-quality fine prints, also framed or unframed, and a variety of other merchandise, from card sets to mousepads, pins, and mugs.
Explore and purchase today. Thanks for your support!
Update, Jun 25, 26, and 28: More galleries updated. Check for new photographs from Alabama, Florida and North Carolina!
The United Kingdom, Revisited
In 2011, my good friend Gerald Lucas gave me an irresistible opportunity: almost a week in England. He was teaching there that summer, and there was University housing available — which meant a visit for the price of a plane ticket, food, and a rental car. One word: absolutely.
Needless to say, I went with camera in-hand — Nikon back then, specifically a D3 with 24-70 and 70-200 lenses — and made it into one large photostroll.
Today, thanks to migrating my Aperture libraries to Lightroom, I had the excuse to revisit some of these images, re-edit some, and repost — a new total of 357 photographs. Take a trip to London, Cambridge, Winchester, Salisbury, and Bath with me. Enjoy!
R.I.P., Aperture
Apple’s Aperture photography software debuted in 2005, as a sort of hi-end iPhoto; it combined sorting and editing into one application, using libraries to keep large collections. It was almost immediately followed by Adobe’s Lightroom, which performed basically the exact same functions — and came with better integration with Adobe’s own Photoshop, as well.
Aperture was developed through several versions, but a change in Apple’s strategy led to a end to development in 2015; however, it’s still been useable in every new version of the MacOS since. Until now — with the debut of MacOS Catalina in September of this year, Aperture will cease to work.
That’s led me — and likely many others — to migrate our Aperture libraries into Lightroom. Now let’s be clear: I’ve been using Lightroom for several years now (I pay the $53 per month Adobe subscription, which offers all applications Adobe currently makes, including Photoshop, InDesign, and Illustrator in addition to Lightroom) and have gotten quite used to the workflow. So when the announcement was made that Aperture was going to stop working, I went into Aperture and . . . was lost. Migrating was necessary.
In the long run, though, it’s been a good thing. Since Lightroom doesn’t import all of the changes and corrections that Aperture makes into Lightroom, I’ve had cause to revisit some of the libraries with a fresh eye.
The first of these is the England library from 2011. Check it out soon.
If you had Aperture, here’s the info from Apple on what to do with your libraries, and the info from Adobe about how to import Aperture libraries into Lightroom (Classic version only).
New Creative Commons Search
Looking for imagery for your book cover? Creative Commons features a library of more than 300 million images, indexed from 19 different collections, including the Cleveland Museum of Art, Metropolitan Museum of Art, DeviantArt, Behance, and Flickr. Images can be searched using keywords and filter the results based on the license type and/or the collection from which the content is sourced, essential for book design — as the vast majority of covers require commercial licenses.
The New Website and Foreword Blog
Back in the ’90s and Aughts, my ex-wife and I ran a popular book design blog called Foreword. For a variety of reasons, from divorce to moving to Georgia and then deciding to do photography full-time, I got away from it. I even let the company name, ospreydesign, get away from me.
I’ve been seriously regretting losing Foreword for a while now — and its return one of the driving reasons for the new web site. Part of that has to do with a return to book design, and wanting to comment on the same, but also because I don’t do social media and have wanted a space to talk about — and get feedback on — items to do with book design, photography, and so much more. There’s no place better than your own web site. Thus, Foreword is back, this time as part of my personal site: gileshoover.com.
Memory Lane
Here’s what ospreydesign looked like way back when:
The site evolved, but only to a point — those were the days of having to pay attention to screen width. Remember: 15-17-inch screens were the new hotness; 13-inch was more normal. (Hence the small layout.) There was something comforting about it, though, and this look preserved for years. Here’s another screenshot:
Foreword, a relatively new item called a weblog, or blog, was both a vehicle of discussion and publicity. And it worked — this little blog grew and gained followers, basically riding the early “wave” of blogs.
Here it is from 2005:
The “look” changed shortly after, while the popularity continued to grow. Here’s another, from fourteen months later:
At this point, Foreword was at its utmost; thousands of readers, #1 in a Google search for “book design,” pretty much everything — and I, quite frankly, decided to throw it all away.
The Photography Era
Changing my priority to photography full-time was both awesome and a completely mixed bag. I absolutely loved the instant results of digital photography, and enjoyed the possibilities of editing them; filters, textures, black and white, and more. The creativity was more immediate, as well, in that I was my own “editor,” for lack of a better term, not answering to as many people as designing books can be.
Making money was more difficult than with book design, but somehow more exciting; in many ways, it’s a performance art — I had to get it right at the time (there are no redos — events move on!), then make it better in the edit. But, I quickly found that weddings and events were not my strong suit. Like many making a profession out of a passion, I too often clashed with the “vision” thing; what I wanted to do — architecture, landscapes, “things” more than people — wasn’t what you made money on.
Worse, I was ahead of an extremely powerful wave: photography as something ubiquitous. With the rise of everything from a flood of new folks doing photography full-time to practically everyone “being” a photographer with just their cell phone, there was absolutely no way I could make the success out of it that I could have had I just stayed with book design first and photography second. Sure, I still did book design — I was early in the photography book genre — but photography as a career proved unsustainable.
Lesson learned.
New Memories
So, book design is again what I describe my profession as, with photography back to being a passion instead of a full-time job, and Foreword has returned. I’m better for it, frankly; so, hopefully, will my readers, as we can again share my love book design — along with why I’ve returned to it full-time.
Having a blog again also gives me a chance to talk about design, book production, photography and how they’ve changed in the intervening years, and recommit myself to regular posting; something I’ve missed and hope others have, too.
Welcome back.