Jessica Kril's Blog

• etivity 11 - byebye, lulu (AHAHAHAHAHAHA!)

  2007 Dec 11

  free from lulu, woop woop woop!
  
  Task:
  Write about your experience in photopublishing with lulu
  
  
  
  My experiences with lulu can be summarized with a love-hate relationship, although love is perhaps a rather strong word..
  Right from the beginning, the site wasn't exactly making things easy: it kept crashing, editing of the storefront was almost impossible and not that much to customize, the navigation was complicated and adding friends was a nightmare.. but there were also good things, like publishing a book for free. :)
  
  I liked the fact that our photo books could be submitted into the normal section of softcover books so we had free reign with the design in ID and were not restricted by some ghastly photo book templates.. yay.
  
  But overall, I am rather not impressed by lulu - I do not see it as a serious publishing platform although it is a good practice.. I cannot see myself making money from this and publishing books on a site like this is still not "real" publishing for me. I do not want to slight anybody's work here, there are interesting and also entertaining compilations and books out there and for private publishing it is a very good thing but I am afraid that higher ambitions do not get satisfied.
  
  I do not see any advantages from publishing my book in a group (apart from getting one review) as only a few people downloaded it (which I cannot change and it's okay) and even less left comments in my development blog, which was incredibly disappointing as I put a lot of work into it and hoped to get some good feedback and constructive criticism. However, this is not lulu's fault but more the group motivation so I think next time there is a unit with such a heavy reliance on online media there should be more emphasis on the importance of this online activity and networking.
  
  Overall, I see lulu's merits and potential and also value certain aspects of the site but I think that with a better technical support and development the site should be more accessible and thus would have more of an impact and not come across as amateurish as it does now. Would the site be more interactive like Facebook with constant technical updates which facilitate the use it would be more popular and more people would use it, thus creating a bigger market for self/publishing.
  

• etivity 10 - photo book reviews

  2007 Dec 03

  .. just in time. :D
  
  Paula asked us last week to review this semester's work of fellow students and thus I downloaded a few books - haven't had the time to have a look at every single one so far but I am still trying - and wrote two reviews of two books I liked (and also was forced / bribed / nicely asked to review).
  
  Et voilà! Tom's and Yash's book comments.
  
  
  It took me ages to do this.. it is hard to write something constructive and not fall into "OMG AWESOME" or "u suck, lol". Not that I ever would. I has grammar. Let me show it to you.
  
  
  
  
  Yes, I admit that I had to look up some of the clever words from the reviews.
  

• etivity 09 photo mag project proposal

  2007 Nov 27

  1-description of theme
  is there a theme/ genre? or other method to organize the material?
  
  The general theme for this magazine are images from group pool of photographic groups which can be found online; hence also the title pool/source. This particular edition will feature sourced images from the flickr group pool what's in your bag? as well as a self-portrait from the flickr-gallery of the respective bag-owner.
  
  
  2-frequency
  do you plan a monthly/seasonal/yearly/occasional mag?
  
  the mag is going to be published quarterly.. ;)
  
  3-description of photography:
  -the source:
  how do you look for submissions
  is there a membership process?
  how do contributors submit their work
  how do you select? how do you deal with the rejects?
  
  the source is going to be a group pool on flickr, each member of the group went though it individually and chose photographs he/she found interesting. therefore, as we used a group pool, only images from these fit into our criteria (also in further editions because this is going to be the point of it).
  
  4-description of text:
  will the texts be personal or critical/theoretical?
  what’s the balance photo/text?
  
  There is hardly going to be any texts featured in the magazine, a quick editorial on who we are and the general pool/source-concept of the magazine as well as a short introduction to the bag/portrait-theme. The names of the bag-owners are going to be placed under each picture, too.
  
  5-description of team roles:
  is there a distribution of roles with: editor(s)/ co-editor(s), guest editor(s), editorial team, main editor, curators, co-curator(s), designer(s) etc
  or are the roles thought in another way?
  describe the editorial process
  
  All group members have got the same role when sourcing the images as we try to get as many different viewpoints of "what is interesting" into the mag as possible. Creating design/editorial will probably be done by only one or two members of the group respectively but have to be approved by the entire group before doing so / publishing anyway.
  
  6-design:
  · Description of visual structure(s): group, series, sequence?
  . Description of mag format
  including:
  document size
  number of pages
  binding
  typeface, etc
  cover/ cover lines
  
  8.5"x8.5", around 50 pages, divided into two groups of pictures
  bags first, then portraits in exactly the same order (placement of bag in group 1 -> placement of owner in group 2)
  
  white background, picture centered, sizes and format of images may vary
  
  flickr font for all writing (may change from edition to edition, depending from which pools we are sourcing from?)
  
  7-relationship between online and print version:
  the same or different?
  if different, explain.
  how will you make the pdf available? will use other interactive features?
  
  the same, will be distributed for free over a pod.
  
  8: pod
  which pod will you use? lulu or another?
  which forms of online and nonline networking can you use to support the project?
  
  lulu and perhaps show it around on deviantart or facebook.
  
  B. photo-mag dummy
  -add images of the photo-mag dummy that visualize how the final product will appear in form and content.
  -when the final product will differ from the dummy, explain the differences
  
  no dummy available yet, it will look a bit different due to the cut/paste nature of a dummy though.
  

• etivity 08 - social bookmarking

  2007 Nov 20

  Here is the link to my del.icio.us-account woop woop woop. I apologize for the messiness, when I recently reinstalled Firefox in the latest version ALL my bookmark got imported so although a lot of them are still hidden for you, my whole account is a mess.
  I have got double links and link that I don't even want and I have to sort it all out..
  DO NOT WANT.
  
  Oh well. Perhaps you can find something interesting in my collection as I started my account before this brief and also bookmarked stuff which have not only got to do with photo publishing but also with photography and the software in general, as well as stuff that just amuses me.
  
  Like, for example, Icanhascheezburger.
  
  
  
  
  .. I have got the same laptop, by the way.
  

• EPIC WIN

  2007 Nov 09

  IT IS DONE!
  My book is finally uploaded.. :DD
  
  view and OBVIOUSLY buy it here here
  
  I am actually quite proud and my Granny is absolutely over the moon - a bit out of proportion perhaps, but still.. I am happy.
  
  Thanks to everybody who helped.
  ESPECIALLY TOM.
  
  
  This is the end of a small journey.