New Books Out Now - Snow Light and Land Light!

I'm now the author of 6 books, not counting my PhD thesis and Degree dissertation (very limited print runs for those)! My 2 newest books were delivered from Loop Printers in Sheffield on Tuesday, well half of them. Their van is too small to fit all 3000 copies on it.

This is the culmination of a project lasting over 10 months. I estimated that it would take 9 months, so it slipped by just one month. It had to fit in around shows, courses and making prints to fill orders, as well as making videos and writing articles for darkroomdave.com, etc. It needed lots of time scanning negatives, more than I expected as the images on my website up to October 2008 were scans from prints. These aren't good enough quality for my books and led to me re-scanning dozens of negatives. In fact I scanned getting on for 400 negatives to select the ones that we used. I can only scan negatives singly and edit one at a time so it was a huge amount of work. My bad back will take a while longer to recover from all those long hours in front of the computer!

Andy, of 10th Planet, has added them to my website Books page so that you can now buy them! We are selling them at £12 each, including UK shipping, instead of the £15 cover price. There is also an introductory bundle special offer of £20 for the 2 books together, again including UK shipping. Outside the UK we have to charge extra for the shipping. I will be adding them to my marketplace shop on Amazon UK over the next few days but they will be full price as Amazon take a hefty commission on every sale. You can also order through booksellers but these will be at full price as well as I don't use distributors, booksellers buy from us direct.

Both are the same dimensions as my previous 4 books, 24.5 x 27cm with 80 pages. Of course all images are in glorious black and white! There is the usual technical data on every image at the back of both books for those interested in the nuts of bolts of my photography.

Both books include images taken in the UK, Europe, USA and New Zealand.

Land Light has 119 images and an article on all my secrets on the equipment that I use, how I compose and take my photos, process the films, print in the darkroom, scan negatives and edit in Photoshop. There are quite a few coastal shots, waterfalls and a few castles liberally spread amongst the photographs. ISBN 978-0-9555627-4-7

Snow Light has 121 images and short articles on Winter Photography, Aerial Photography and one on my obsession to take a very specific photo in Colorado in Winter over a 9 year period. Lots of snowy images including lots taken while skiing, ski mountaineering, snowshoeing or while hiking through snowy landscapes in the winter. ISBN 978-0-9555627-3-0

Printing Snow Light and Land Light New Books

On Wednesday 18th March 2015, we went over to Loop Printers in Sheffield to supervise the start of the print run for my 2 new landscape photography books. This time we are having 2 books printed at the same time as I have so many images not yet published in any of my books.

Snow Light is snowscapes from around the world and includes 121 images as well as  3 articles. Land Light is landscapes around the world that are not snowy and includes 119 images and 1 article giving away all of my secrets!

Jan took some video segments on her Nikon D90 which I edited in iMovie, to be included on YouTube and in this blog post. The movie runs for a bit under 1.5 minutes but is over 100Mb in size before YouTube converts it. Our broadband is too slow to cope so I have to send it to Andy, our graphic designer and web man, to convert and upload; one of the limitations of living in a National Park! The video covers the process from loading the paper for the covers, running the press, checking for quality and changing the printing plates.

The printing should be finished within a day. Covers need to be glossed and sealed and then it all has to be sent to the binders to be finished off and packed.

We are waiting to hear when the finished books will be delivered but expect to have all 3000 copies of the books before Easter. Both are the same format as my previous books with 80 pages in each, mostly images.

Here are some still photos with the video at the end.

The stack of paper for printing the covers loaded into the printing machine

Covers for both books being printed together.

Dave checking the first prints for quality, mainly density and contrast as well as dust

Completed stack of printed covers being removed from press, to be printed on the reverse, glazed and sealed

Trevor changing printing plates, taking out the one used for the covers and replacing with the bluey coloured new one (leaning against the machine) for the Snow Light intro pages

The Loop Printers logos on the wall of the building. This makes 4 books that they have printed for us.

So far they have done a very good job!

Here's the edited YouTube video of the printing

Land Light Book First Draft

My new book of landscapes without snow is looking like a book!

We have the first draft, complete with covers and layout for most of the 80 pages. We need to move some images around to be in the right places and a few other things need to be tidied up. Here's the cover.

Still on track for printing at the end of February and to be on sale by mid-March-ish. It will be available at the same time as Snow Light, my new snowy landscape photograph book.

At the moment it has 113 different images, none previously published in any of my previous books.

Locations include Northumberland, Yorkshire, Lake District, a few from the Peak District, Norfolk and the South Coast, Snowdonia, Scottish Highlands and Islands, the Alps including Bavaria, and odd images from across Europe, as well as New Zealand, Colorado, Utah and Yosemite.

It's the same format as my other 4 books, 24 x 27.5cm, 80 pages.

Looking forward to Draft 2 which should have a layout pretty close to the final book.

Snow Light new book

My new book of snowy landscapes is starting to look like a book!

We have the first draft, complete with covers and layout for most of the 80 pages. I forgot to include one of the three articles so that has to be added and some images moved around to be in the right places. Here's the cover.

Still on track for printing at the end of February and to be on sale by mid-March-ish. It will be available at the same time as Land Light, my other new landscape photograph book.

At the moment it has 117 different images, with just one that has been published in a previous book albeit in a different format. I'm using artists prerogative to include my all-time favourite image that was used as the cover of my first book, taken in 1995 on a ski mountaineering trip near Wengen in Switzerland.

Locations include the Peak District, Snowdonia, Glen Coe, Cairngorms, Alps, Colorado, Utah, Wyoming and New Zealand.

It's the same format as my other 4 books, 24 x 27.5cm, 80 pages.

Snow Light and Land Light in Final Stage

My 2 new books have reached the final stage. All 231 image files plus the articles,  technical data tables, ISBN numbers and my brief are all with Andy, my graphic designer.

It will take about 3 weeks to pull everything together as 2 books. The printers have been provisionally booked for the end of February. They need about 2 weeks to print, collate, bind and pack.

All being well they should be available from mid-March. They make the 5th and 6th books on my photography.

Snow Light includes 117 photos with a distinctly wintry snowy feel. They include lots of photos taken while skiing around the mountains, snowshoeing and winter hiking. Some UK shots but lots from the Alps and Rockies.

Land Light includes 114 images with no obvious snow. Photos taken in the UK, across Europe, USA and New Zealand. Lots of waterfalls too.

Should have the covers sorted in a week or so and a better idea of timescales. Will do a post with them then.

PhotoLive 2013

All set up ready for the starting pistol of PhotoLive 2013 www.photo-live.com!

Expecting lots of people today for the dozens of lectures, hopefully some will come to mine!

My lectures today are.
The Art of Monochrome City Scenes, 10 to 10.45 am, room 7

The Art of Monochrome Landscapes, 3 to 3.45 pm, room 1

My stand is 3a. Here's a picture of it. Mostly books and a few pictures.
All books at much reduced prices.

PhotoLive 2013 This Weekend

The new PhotoLive 2013 event in London is fast approaching. It is being run by Future Publishing whose titles include Photography Week, Digital Camera, PhotoPlus, NPhoto and Practical Photoshop.

I am one of the 30-odd lecturers for the 2 day event, Saturday 26th and Sunday 27th October.

My lectures are 10 - 10.45am, 'The Art of Monochrome City Scenes', and 3 - 3.45pm 'The Art of Monochrome Landscapes', same lectures at the same time on both days. There are 10 to 13 lectures going on at the same time throughout the day so lots to choose from.

Use discount code SC_15 for a 15% discount on the day and weekend ticket prices. You can also buy tickets for individual lectures at £20 each.

My lectures are brand new. I'm still trying to learn my words, never easy as I refuse to use a script and generally just make it up using the prints to prompt me. Yes, even in this digital age I am still doing new print lectures from my film negatives! These have 30 prints in each. Apart from 1 poster in the city lecture all of the prints are silver gelatin darkroom prints. A lot of these are new fibre based prints made by me over the last few weeks.

The landscapes lecture is mostly illustrated with mountain photos, the city lecture mostly includes photographs from my new City Light book.

I also have stand 3A in the PhotoLive retail area. You can visit this without paying any fee at all. My landscapes books, Lake Light, Peak Light and High Light are all £5 instead of £15. City Light is £10 instead of £15. Free autograph and bag with every purchase!

I will also have details of the courses for next year, if you want to have a chat about these or private tuition.

The venue is the Novotel London West in Hammersmith.

Still time to book using the SC_15 15%-off discount code!

Hope to see you there.

Last Day of Buxton Easter Fair and Book Signing Today

It's the last day of the Easter Fair in Buxton Pavilion Gardens.
Jan will be running our stand on her own while I continue signing books in the Tourist Information Centre area, near the Gallery in the Gardens. The show opens at 10am and ends at 5pm. The weather has been great, albeit a bit cold. Still snow on the ground but all roads are clear. Hope to see you there!

I finally remembered to take a picture of the stand on our little Lumix DMC-FX550 digital camera and here it is. It's a few years old but still takes pretty good quality images.

2 More Days Book Signing in Buxton!

I was so busy book signing yesterday that I have decided to do 2 more days, today and tomorrow. If you're in Buxton come to the Pavilion Gardens Tourist Information Centre. You can't miss me, I'm right by the TIC/till area.

Despite suggestions yesterday that my signature was too cheap it remains free with every book bought!

I have all 4 books here. City Light is £ 15, Peak Light, Lake Light and High Light are £10.

I'm here 10am to 5pm both days.

Jan is running our stand in the Easter Fair in a different part of Pavilion Gardens. Lots of pictures and show prices. Over 70 exhibitors selling art,  craft, food and drinks!

Buxton Gallery in the Gardens New Display

I have changed my display of framed photographs in the Gallery in the Gardens in Buxton Pavilion Gardens. There is a strong bias to cities to tie in with my City Light book launch.
Locations now include Rome, London, Oxford and Paris as well as some local ones.

I forgot to photograph the display but here are a couple of the images, you'll just have to imagine what the narrow black frames and white mounts look like!

St Peter's Basilica and River Tiber at Night, Rome

Radcliffe Camera, Oxford

By the way, I will be doing a City Light book signing in the Buxton Tourist Information Centre on Easter Saturday.

City Light available through Dave Butcher site and Amazon UK.

My new book City Light is now available through the Dave Butcher web site as well as Amazon UK

City Light Book at Loop Printers

My new book City Light was at the printers in Sheffield, Loop Print, today. They also printed my last book Lake Light.

Here are a few shots. Jan and I went over to check the first 2 sheets of pages as they came off.

Trevor the printer (featured in the shots below) had a bit of work to do to give us the blacks and contrast that we wanted. It was looking good after he worked his magic.

Should be finished tomorrow. Then it goes to binders. We should take delivery Wednesday or Thursday next week.

The launch will be on the Ilford Photo stand C2 Hall 9 at the Focus on Imaging show at the Birmingham NEC, Sunday 3rd to Wednesday 6th March.

Just arrived in Market Deeping near Peterborough to give lecture tonight. Lecture in Bury tomorrow.

City Light - Cities of the World and Buxton, New Book

I have just sent back what I think are the final edits to my new book, City Light - Cities of the World and Buxton.

It should go to the printers later this week and be ready for launch at Focus on Imaging at the Birmingham NEC from 3rd to 6th March.

Ilford Photo / Harman Technology have once again invited Jan and I to join them on their stand at the show, which is open to both trade and retail visitors. The stand number is C2 in Hall 9.

There are 31 cities and 123 images in 80 pages, as well as an article on city and night photography and technical data on every image. The cover price is £15 but there will be an introductory show offer for visitors for the 4 days of the Focus show.

Come to the show if you are able to and say hello and look at my new book. We can take cards and cash!

We will put it on the web site as soon as we can after it is printed and on Amazon Marketplace.

The photographs were taken over 22 years, hope you like them.

Dave Butcher Newsletter November 2012

Events
We have one more event in November over this coming weekend, the last Christmas show:

Christmas Contemporary Craft Fair, Stand 51, Craft in Focus at RHS Wisley near Guildford, Wednesday 21st to Sunday 25th November; £7 entry, RHS members free. Jan runs our stand single-handed for this to give my bad back a break as it's a long show; 5 show days plus a set-up day. Hopefully you will keep her busy!
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We have lots of framed and unframed photographs, posters, books and more. There are 2 new 1 metre panoramas of London. Also some sample prints at reduced prices. Many of the posters have sold out but we have a new Chicago Riverside in Snow poster as well as some New York ones. There are a few waterfall posters, a couple of Lone Tree posters and some tree or waterfall triptychs too. They make inexpensive Christmas presents! In total maybe about 400 individual prints, not counting spares. If you are visiting the show it may be best to allow yourself a few extra minutes to browse everything.

No more shows after this until Focus on Imaging at the NEC from 3rd March 2013.

Next year we have also booked shows at Hatfield House (May), Glasgow (May), Stonor Park (August) and Birmingham NEC (March and November) as well as the usual local shows in Buxton. Maybe one or two more still to book. Not so many as this year which was too manic at times!

New Book - City Light

I'm busy scanning negatives for my next book which comes out in early March. Ilford Photo/Harman Technology have kindly agreed to have Jan and I on their stand (C2) at the Focus on Imaging show at the Birmingham NEC starting Sunday 3rd March 2013. This is a great place for book launches and City Light will be available there at a special price (we'll have all the course dates and info by then too). We will also have as many framed hand prints of the city photos from the book as we can fit in. I'm sure Ilford Lab Direct will also want to do one or two large prints from the book too; maybe 1 metre or larger panoramas. So lots to see.

At the moment it looks like there will be 4 sections of photos: UK, Europe, USA and Far East. There will also be a short feature on City Photography, including night photography. So far my list runs to 37 cities; too many for 80 pages/90 images. I think I have some editing of the list to do before I scan very much more!

Landscape Photography Courses
We have started thinking about next years courses. Still just the one in the Peak District. We are waiting on the dates for next years shows in Buxton before setting too many more. Should be out soon.

Peak District Photo course at Bole Hill and Padley Gorge, Saturday 6th April 2013, £150 per place.

This offers a full day of practical photography, no classroom sessions, just 5 people with 2 tutors (Dave and Jan Butcher) in an enjoyable atmosphere. We cover both black and white and colour between the pair of us so all needs should be met. They are suitable for complete beginners to advanced photographers as well as for both digital and film cameras. Overall, we help you to be more creative with your photographs, producing images with more impact. Book through davebutcher.co.uk.

Private courses: All courses can be run as private courses. Prices for all locations are shown on the web site. If you can't make the dates in our programme or would like more attention than is possible in a group, or you have your own group then talk to us about what we can do for you.

Darkroom Printing Courses

The darkroom printing courses are £160 per place and include all paper and chemicals. Ilford subsidise the cost of the paper and chemicals used on the courses for which there is no extra charge. There are 2 places on each course so you are assured of lots of attention during the day. No previous experience needed but you will get more out of the course if you have a few of your own negatives.

Next available darkroom printing course: Sunday 7th April.

Private darkroom courses also available on dates to suit you, more details on the web site.

New Photographs
Still adding city images to my web site with my new book in mind. Here are a few more from Manchester and Glasgow. Last major trip for the book is to Rome in less than 2 weeks time. There are more new ones on the web with more being added each week.

I have quite a big back-log of landscapes to do once the city ones for the book are finished. Please be patient if you are waiting to see some of these from trips that I've mentioned this year.

Glasgow Royal Exchange Square and Christmas Lights

Glasgow University from Kelvingrove Park

Salford Quays Lowry Bridge

Salford Quays Victoria Building and Mariners Canal

Manchester Castlefield, Canal and Railway Bridges

Photo Tips

The changing leaves of autumn seemed to pass really quickly this year; early frosts caused the trees to shed their leaves quickly. I hope you managed to get out and take the turning leaves before they dropped. We are back to unsettled weather again, wet one day, sun and showers the next. It's been a bit chilly too. All good conditions for landscapes. The views when the rain stops are great, no heat haze, and nice light through the day with the sun low in the sky. This time 2 years ago we had heavy snow (hoping it keeps off for another week ot two as we finish shows and trips!) so you should be getting ready for cold crisp snowy days when they come. Don't forget to over-ride the camera meter system for the extra light reflected off the snow. This is usually about 2 stops if the sun is out. Hope that helps.

There's quite a bit of extra technical stuff on the web site if you want some more tips.

Next Newsletter

My newsletters appear every month or so at the moment.
If you know someone who would like to receive this newsletter then please pass it on using the button below and they can also subscribe by signing up through my web site.

Previous newsletters are archived on my web site as pdf files.
You are receiving this as a customer, newsletter subscriber or someone who has given email details at a show or other event.

Dave Butcher  19-November-2012

New Web Sites for Each Book

I now have a web site for each of my 3 books. They give a better impression of each book than was previously available on my main site, http://www.davebutcher.co.uk/books-and-writing.

If you are interested have a look by clicking on each link in turn.
Lake Light: http://www.lakelight.co.uk/
Peak Light: http://www.peaklight.co.uk/
High Light: http://www.highlightbook.co.uk/

Hope you like them!
Dave

Lake Light Print Run

Yesterday afternoon I heard that Lake Light was going to be printed this morning so I had an early start to drive the 27 miles across to South Yorkshire Printers in Sheffield for 8.30pm. I was there in good time despite the traffic and then watched the first plate be printed. This was printing 4 pages from the book. Right from the start print quality was pretty good and with a few minor tweaks was even better.

I gave the go ahead and 15 minutes later 1500 copies were finished and in a stack on the floor to await printing the reverse face when the ink had dried. The plan is to print today and tomorrow and Saturday if needed. The cover was also being printed and this looked good too. After printing it will be lacquered to a high gloss before it can be bound.

The binding is done by another company so I'm unlikely to receive copies until the end of next week. I was hoping to have for Wednesday 3rd so that I could take them to my next camera club lecture to Chapel-en-le-Frith Camera Club.

Can't wait to see the final books and start selling them at Focus on Imaging at the NEC.

Lake Light to Printers

At long last my new book Lake Light is with the printers in Sheffield. Hope to soon hear when it will be printed. I will go over to check print quality when they start the print run.

It has 89 images, a foreword by Joe Cornish, location map, technical data for all images and an article on using digital cameras for taking black and white landscapes.

Lake Light can be ordered now through my web site. Copies will be shipped next week.

The formal book launch will be at the Focus on Imaging exhibiton at the NEC Birmingham 7th to 10th March. I will be on the Harman Technology / Ilford Photo stand (C2 in Hall 9) doing 4 days of book signing.

Lake Light Edits

Well, I'm not quite sure how we got there but I've just sent off version 10 of Lake Light to the Designer, Andy. I have seen 4 or 5 versions so I think Andy must have generated a few in-house and not sent them to me.

Mostly this was checking picture captions and plate numbers and the foreword by Joe Cornish. There are 88 images in Lake Light so pretty close to the number in Peak Light (90).

Will have to carefully check the edits on this lot and will be the first time since the first proof that the numbering should be correct. Not long now. Launch date is Sunday 7th March at the Focus on Imaging show at the NEC Birmingham. Getting impatient to have finished and on sale; I've been working on it for so long now.

Had some snow here today. Just a dusting, nothing serious. Walking to Buxton tomorrow for a day in the Gallery in Pavilion Gardens so hope the weather is reasonable for that.

Lake Light 3rd Proof

I sent off the edited version of the 3rd proof of Lake Light last night. It's pretty much done and, with a couple of minor edits, will be sent to Joe Cornish so that he can write the foreword.
Cover design is done too.

As we are moving forward so well and the launch date is getting closer we have added Lake Light to the Books page on the web site. If you would like a copy you can now order it by paying £15 (post free worldwide).
It will be shipped when available (late Feb/early March) in the order in which orders are received.
Encouragingly, I already have several orders.
The official launch will be at the Focus on Imaging show at the NEC 7th to 10th March but we should have the book a week or so before this so those ordering early will receive their signed copies of Lake Light before anyone else.

With the new layout it looks like there will be 88 or 89 photographs in the book. For a long time it looked like it would be 85 but Andy changed the layout and needed more images to make it work.
Dave Butcher

Lake Light Edits

I received the first proof of Lake Light just before Christmas and at long last the final edits on it are finished. All the headers and captions are sorted. There will be 85 Lake District images. The map now has all the locations marked on it. The technical data table is finished. The book is divided into 3 sections, each with an introduction, and all of these are written. There is also an article on using digital cameras for black and white landscape photography, after all this is what most people come on my courses to learn about.

I will send off all the edit files tomorrow to Andy, the book designer I am using. I look forward to receiving the 2nd proof sometime next week. Hopefully that will be close to the final copy. Then a copy will go to Joe Cornish so that he can write the foreword while I'm in USA on photo trip. Then to the printers in February ready for big launch on Harman/Ilford stand at Focus on Imaging at the NEC 7th to 10th March.

Still keeping fingers crossed until all done!
Dave Butcher