I've been planning on doing a little side project from all my other projects, because, you KNOW I need another project! The side project is loosely called "You Said Something, It Was Really Important." (OR, "You Said Something, I've Never Forgotten.")* It consists of photos from my journal, taken all hi-res, made into a PDF and then loaded to MagCloud. From there you'll be able to get a magazine or a download or both. Awesome.
As I was concieving this little project it took a lot less time in my mind, shooting pictures should take X amount of time, creating the PDF should take X amount of time, I can get it done in a night!
Not.
Shooting hundreds of pictures takes hours, not an hour. When you take a picture of a journal you end up having to figure out the BEST way to get the image and it took a few minutes of set up and a couple of tries to get a set up that worked properly for most of my journal page. Also , please note that a large sheet of plexi glass keeps your pages flat and a polarizing filter helps cut the glare and makes colors pop. Once i figured that out I STILL had to wade through the good and the bad in the journals. Some of the stuff is too personal and other still could get me fired from the DayJob if I publish it. I tried to keep a good balance and stayed on the edge- you get to see some stuff that I haven't put online, in hi res, printed glory AND I get to stay employed. It's a win!
In the end I realize I've got more than once zine's worth of stuff or one really FAT zine full of stuff. I'm struggling with how big do I want to make this thing? 50 Pages? 90 pages? 150 pages? Add to that, if I do 150 pages then I'll probably never do another, and I think I want to do another. Also the cost of the thing goes up dramaticaly if I do more than 50 pages. I want to keep it affordable. (BUT, how cool would a 150 page zine be?)
The other part of this is, I really thought, once I shoot the pictures I can flood them into publisher and get my PDF done. Yeah not so easy. There is no easy way to flood 50 images into publisher all at the same size. They all come in at different sizes, need to be resized to the correct size, put in the RIGHT spot, contract and color tweaked so they look correct, background color chosen, etc... Graphic designers of the world I salute you. (Also please tell me that the Adobe suite is easier to use than publisher... Future goal: get a Mac and Adobe.)
So I'm about 33% done and feeling kind of bummed that I won't be able to finish this by the weekend. "You Said Something" won't be ready for another week or so. I'm still debating if I add captions or not. How many words do I add, if I add any at all? Maybe that should all be hand written too... You see where I'm going here? I'm one of those peopel that dives into a project like this head first, no plans and figures it out as I go along,I give myself unrealistic and unattainable goals and then I'm surprised when I bung it up.
So now I know ho wmuch work goes into this, I'll make sure I set more realistic goals in the future.
*You know I'm a huge PJ Harvey fan, and these are lines from one of my favorite songs of hers.
You Must Add Words! =)
Posted by: Gennie | January 31, 2012 at 07:21 AM
There are a few bulk image sizers out there. Dunno if they're any good, but might be worth a Google search and some experimentation...
Posted by: estonia | January 31, 2012 at 05:33 PM
@estonia good call I downloaded one last night and ill test it out today and see how it works. I still wish I could bulk load to publisher, oh well.
Posted by: leslie herger | February 01, 2012 at 07:07 AM
@gennie Im not sure how much im going to do in terms of words- an introduction and then some for every so many pages, or if I can let the words on the pages speak for themselves
Posted by: leslie herger | February 01, 2012 at 07:08 AM
It's a brilliant idea! But I can see how this would be HARD to execute! I've fumbled with photo taking and photoshopping enough to know it's a time consuming process just to get one good image out of oh..10? 20? Still, if it sparks your imagination, it's a good thing!
Posted by: Jennifer Gott | February 01, 2012 at 09:31 AM
wow, this is a really cool website! Les, I would buy a magazine like that! I may just try to put one together for my daughter for her wedding in July! 6 months should be plenty of time, right?! LOL
Posted by: Ruth Brightman | February 02, 2012 at 09:00 AM
@Ruth its an AWESOME site, I cant wait to start using it!
Posted by: leslie herger | February 03, 2012 at 08:57 AM
@jennifer- its much easier once you get a set up- I use a tripod and stationary lighting so it increases the chances of success when shooting objects like a journal.
Posted by: leslie herger | February 03, 2012 at 08:59 AM