Let’s Publish a Coffee Table Book.

[Kestrana]

As orionid stated I’m on board with his idea. We can afford to be really picky and include really awesome shots this way while leaving plenty of room open for another edition if we want to. I think the 2009 edition idea had just been put forward both as a combination of easy to get a hold of the photographers + giving us a smaller pool to wade through + self-publishing. But with Drew’s assistance in putting this together we will have resources previously unavailable to help us get the licensing aspect taken care of.

[Kestrana]

Upload picture in largest available resolution to said pools.

I don’t know that flickr can handle that. I’m only using 2.5% of my 150 gigs web space, and get 1.5 terabits per month upload/download–and come within .2 percent of that. I could handle the large size pics, I think. if the average pic was 8 Mb, I’d get 187k views of them per month out of the account. For not much more (and I’d agree to it; new job is going well and I can afford it now), I can have unlimited bandwidth/storage space for such a venture.

A pool just takes the info from your own Flickr page and categorizes it. Even a free Flickr account would be able to support 4-5 large file sizes. Realistically we probably wouldn’t need larger than 2000 pixels x 1500 pixels (ish) but larger is better when dealing with digital printing.

[staplermofo]

I think we should frame the idea for some kind of book-worthy framework first, then fill that framework with pictures.

So, you know, we could all think about what farktography is and what it offers beyond a bunch of pictures, try to shuffle whatever those turn out to be into something a stranger would enjoy going through, then build from there. You know, because context makes pictures more interesting.

We run this mofo, if someone needs help getting a picture that fits we can just make and run that contest.
If we need commentary on stuff we can just make a thread about it. Interesting images are a given, interesting everything else is what I think we should work on. And by everything else I mean context.

For example, idle_hands clearly was accustomed to taking pictures for printing out big and spending time thoughtfully looking at. They are the classical jazz of photography. The largest I’ve ever printed one of my photos was 8×10, and nothing was ever worth so much as magneting to the fridge.
Hop over to the FSM and compare our portfolios, then vomit in existential disgust to see I average 1 more vote than her per entry.

I think something like that, assuming we have a couple more people willing to be the subject of mockery, would make for a funny running commentary.
Along with various stuffs you’ve learned or experienced that could make a paragraph or two capable of mutually edifying a photo.

[olavf]

Sorry….just catching up. ’twas a busy week :/

Kestrana I was originally toying with one the ideas we had whereby we would set a fixed number of photos per contest, and then go with the top ‘X’ number of photos, removing duplicates from the same Farktographer for that contest. The spreadsheet I’d started making before the interest in the project dwindled was compiling metrics and user names for each one. I didn’t finish it, but I can send you what I’ve got if you’re interested. Or, I can pick that back up and start compiling again if someone wants to define the parameters.

I like the idea of doing more than just 2009, too. We originally picked that because we were going to bust our collective arses and try and get something to the self-publisher before year-end, so people could make Christmas presents out of them, if they wanted. We have a *lot* of new Farktographers since then, and I’d like to see them included where they qualify.

Throwing out some of the so-so contests, might not be a bad idea to get more in. I’d definitely take out stuff like ‘A Second Look’ which was purely pictures that have been used before. Likewise the Anniversary contests.

For voting, I have an installation of Gallery2, where I host my personal pictures. It has a rating module that could be used for such a purpose. I’ve got 400 some-odd gigs on that drive, so space isn’t a concern, and b/w shouldn’t be a problem so long as my server doesn’t crap out again =P I can set up something quick and dirty this weekend if we want to see how that will work (I’ve never tried it)

and, staplermofo I think I see where you’re going – make it more about the Farktography, and why it is we loonatics do what we do, and let the pictures highlight the words? I like it.

[ravnostic]

and, staplermofo I think I see where you’re going – make it more about the Farktography, and why it is we loonatics do what we do, and let the pictures highlight the words? I like it.

That’s a really well-put way to condense S’s suggestion. I like it, too (especially since you translated it in to English for noobies.)

[Kestrana]

The only problem I see with staplermofo‘s idea is that farktography isn’t about words, at least not to me. It’s about trying to take interesting, unconventional and sometimes humorous photographs within a conceptual framework; it’s a self-challenge as much as it is a contest between friends.

But I’d like to hear your thesis and topical outline for a 200 page book about farktography. I think the reason each of us participates is going to be different and in that sense it would become just a book of mini-profiles, which isn’t something I personally would peruse in a book store. Something with say Dancin_in_Anson‘s dog from Animals on the cover might make me stop, look, laugh, pick up and want to see more photographs. Although I think we do need an introduction that covers the ideas you’ve put forth, I personally would like to keep words to a minimum and present the photographs ostensibly with no more commentary than what they would receive in the contest thread.

I agree that we need to put the pictures in context, that’s why we would select certain contests as our chapters. There were too themes I generally had going through my head for the cover – first of course, “It’s not photography, it’s Farktography” and how that might differ from other photography contests (its about the heart and soul and interestingness of the picture not just technical merit). Second, “capturing the world for the internet, one pixel at a time” because as I was pondering the other day, photographs freeze the world in place, document and interrupt the flow of time and space; the internet does the same. Photography itself lets you step into other times and places, I think farktography works on a more personal level because people choose their subjects from their every day lives and adventures, they’re not professionals trekking to the photo mecca or paid to get that special shot.

In the end I’m not sure I have a complete understanding of where you were going with your idea mofo, help me out if I’m lost?

[staplermofo]

I guess what I’m pushing for is something to make a farktography book stand out as something more than just a bunch of pictures some people from some internet community took. Just like farktography itself is more than that. Party because we’re on the word-based Fark.com and farktography.net and partly because I don’t see how a stranger is going to get much out of it without it. I think we should approach it with strangers as the audience.

My brilliant plan:
No chapter would be more than 5 pages of words, ideally with more than 20 pages of photos to each page of words.

Chapter one: brief history and explanation of farktography, then pictures from the “best of” contests.
Chapter two: a collection of anecdotes reflecting both sides of the farktography experience, then pictures from a couple of contests that show what was mentioned in context, grouped as sub-chapters.
Chapters 3 – blah: if we manage to bang out anything profound or interesting about how farktography is different, changes the participants, whatever, something that fits in a page or two, we make each of those a chapter each and then group together a couple contests worth of pictures that somehow tie into that, again, grouped into sub-chapters.

my crappy ideas which I’m throwing out in hopes of getting more interesting people’s ideas:

How being a subset of fark, where everyone is up on the news, changes the dynamic, you know, since the average news article gets to choose from photos of like 20 guys that are through and through pros; as opposed to 4chan or whatever.
The inevitability of the FSM, how we’ll get 10,000 or whatever page views and fewer than 100 voters.
How knowing you have an audience makes you a better photographer.
How knowing your audience is someone bored at work might make you a gimmicky photographer.
How the peer pressure of a small community can push you to participate in contests you wouldn’t ordinarily be interested in, like HDR, fake tilt shift or whatever.
etc

Chapter last: we take those, see if we can come up with some kind of extrapolative end chapter or find a theme anything to make it seem more like a book and less like someone else’s photo album, then an assortment of pictures that should make it in the book but don’t fit elsewhere.

[Kestrana]

I see what you’re postulating here. It’s 180 degrees from anything I had in mind but I’d like to see what other people have to say about both your idea and orionid‘s.

[SilverStag]

I have participated in a project like this: The Indianapolis Star sponsored a book of photography called Capture Indy (which I personally disliked as a title, but I didn’t get any input there). There were about 650 photographers participating, and 8962 photos uploaded- all for an 8.5×11 book of 144 pages or so.

Someone had to lay out all of those pages, and edit the text, etc. It’s a huge job. I think that this is about the same scale as what we are proposing here, so let me share some stats.

The book is divided into 8 sections plus an index-

The sections are:

Friendly Faces
Landmarks
Scapes of all sorts
Newsworthy
Sports & Recreation
Arts & Culture
Everyday Life
Pets

The index has photographer information, etc and page references.

Captions on the photos were mostly as submitted by the photographers, with minor editing. Apparently many photographers can’t spell.

To translate this into something more Fark-y: I suppose we could categorize the contests somehow- Very Punny, something like that.

I open the floor to you ideas…

[linguine]

Doing something like the Indy book might work where we could try to fit groups of contests into broad themes. One section could be something with animals(we’ve done that general theme plenty of times and have a lot to choose from there). Maybe a high manipulation theme for stuff like hdr, stitching, tilt-shift and the hootenany, maybe holga too since I would guess most the people made their holga images digitally. And then we could add commentary for these sections, so with the software section we could talk about something like the ongoing debates on how much manipulation is allowed.

[orionid]

Doing something like the Indy book might work where we could try to fit groups of contests into broad themes. One section could be something with animals(we’ve done that general theme plenty of times and have a lot to choose from there). Maybe a high manipulation theme for stuff like hdr, stitching, tilt-shift and the hootenany, maybe holga too since I would guess most the people made their holga images digitally. And then we could add commentary for these sections, so with the software section we could talk about something like the ongoing debates on how much manipulation is allowed.

That’s sort of what I was thinking.

Foreword – Thoughts by Drew, quips from various farktographers (possibly selected quotes taken from the forum), a brief history of farktography, and how to join us (or at least lurk).

Visual chapters divided into thematic groups. Each chapter would have a blurb about the overarching theme, then each theme would have the title, description, and possibly some applicable/humorous quotes from the theme thread. Each photo would be titled and captioned as it appeared in the contest. Examples with recent contests:

The world around us: land/city/water scape themes, general nature, etc
-Monumental
-Skylines
-Farkitecture

The extraordinary ordinary: Themes with a high concentration of unique looks at everyday objects
-Rain, rain
-By the numbers
-Plants

Introspection: Photos that speak about ourselves
-Kid at heart
-I’m a geek
-I like it anyways

Animals:
-Animals
-Man’s best friend
-Birds

Thinking outside the box: Open ended and interpretive themes
-All night long
-Squares
-One is the loneliest number

Be more specific: Theme’s with very specific subjects that don’t fit in elsewhere
-Macro bugs
-Roy G Biv
-Dragons

Computers are people, too: Software intense themes
-HDR 3
-Season’s Greetings
-Software Hootenanny

It’s not photography…: Silliness and farkisms
-Clusterfark
-I like where this thread is going
-Training documents

Themes without a country: Anything worth having that didn’t fit anywhere else
-Passenger side
-Potent potables
-pan fried

Index 1 – themes and respective pages
Index 2 – farktographers and respective pages.

[linguine]

One group of contests that I’d vote for including would be the sort of random objects contests such as forks, apples vs oranges, barbie and ken, staplers, and maybe the dollar store contest because these contests tended to capture the fun/silly side of farktography and always had some really creative entries.(These could probably be included in the It’s not photography…: Silliness and farkisms section or in its own section if that section is getting too big)

Also from a historical perspective we should definitely include look to the skies in the world around us section since that was the first really big contest and still sits in second for most votes ever(although it may be difficult to get a top 5 from this contest anymore since a lot of the links are dead so we’d be hoping that we’re able to get in contact with people from this contest and that they still remember what they entered).

[Kestrana]

Ok how about this attempt to compromise with everything suggested so far and actually get to a point where we can start working:

1. Form a committee of people who will make the decisions and come back with a product for the larger farktography group to look at
2. Make either a facebook group or a new thread here where the committee talks to each other, so everyone else can observe and/or comment
3. Book is 200 pages, 50 contests, 8-10 pictures per contest. At an average of 3 pictures per page that leaves approximately 66 pages for non-photographic content. Pictures can always be made larger if we don’t use that much on text.
4. Book is divided into thematic chapters and introduced by a 2-4 page essay discussing the impact of the contests in the chapter, any humorous anecdotes that are applicable and any larger implications about life, the world and everything. Maybe each one could be written by a different farktographer?
5. Book also has a foreword written by Drew, perhaps with help from farktographers, explaining the contest and history of farktography.
6. Book has a table of contents by theme and an index by photographer.

Based on interest and participation in this discussion I nominate myself, orionid, staplermofo, olavf, SilverStag and linguine to be the committee, but I would leave it open until the end of this week for other volunteers, and make a post in Pub & Grill, and this week’s contest summing this up.

[ravnostic]

All sounds good. Hope you guys do well, and look forward to having something to contribute next time around!

[staplermofo]

I’m crazy busy and just like shooting my mouth off then regretting everything I’ve said and then sulking and/or wallowing for two or three days, then getting worked up and angry and I hardly participate and demonstrably don’t know what people like, so I nominate Elsinore.

[Author]

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