My new book project "Platinum Women"

[Dan Dozer]

I'm really excited about being able to announce that I have completed my first book project. It's a collection of Platinum/Palladium prints of the portrait and figure work I do with female models. All of the images were shot with either the 8 x 10 Deardorff or 4 x 5 Linhoff Technikardan. Don't get to excited - it's only self-published on Blurb, but it's still a big deal for me. I don't really expect many people to buy it, but wouldn't mind a few looking at it and saying "Hey, that's not too bad!".

http://www.blurb.com/b/5512251-platinum-women

[Frank_E]

Hey that's not bad….
(and yes I did look at it first….)

[richardman]

Hey, that's not too bad.

Well done. Your book illustrates the biggest problem with Blurb: high cost. I have been there...

[ghostcount]

Hey Dan,

Well done and congrats for getting it out to share your work.

[Eric Rose]

Outstanding.

[cowanw]

Very good indeed!

[Jim Fitzgerald]

Dan, congratulations! Nice to be published and the work is outstanding.

[Bob Mann]

Really nice -

[ndg]

The images are so tasteful and the printing so very masterful. This is the quality of work I aspire to do one day.

[invisibleflash]

Beautiful!

[Hugo Zhang]

Dan,

Congratulations and let me know the printing quality when you have the real book in your hands next week.

Hugo

[Tin Can]

Very nice Dan, both educational and Goddess worship, in a very tasteful way.

Seal a few up and put them away for your children's grandchildren to find.

I put stuff in the walls for strangers...

[Richard Johnson]

We like it. How's your wife like it?

[Dan Dozer]

We like it. How's your wife like it?

You may not believe this, but my wife is the one who encouraged me to shoot female nudes.

[Dan Dozer]

Got my first copies of the book in the mail today and here is my "critique" of the Blurb process.

Overall, the print quality is not bad, however, remember that this is book of Platinum/Palladium prints and many of those are soft focus images. Being Pt/Pd images, the brownish color is really pretty good. There are a few that have a slight greenish cast to them, not sure why. The color images in the book turned out really good as far as color matching and rendition go. The Cyanotype over Platinum look perfect and the pastel colored Pt/Pd prints look really nice also. Just don't expect the same type of look like you would see in a high profile commercially printed fine art book. The printing system that the self publishing companies use is not offset printing, and it's not possible to get that same look.

The paper I choose for the book is called their ProLine Uncoated. It is their only high end paper that is natural matt finish which I though was appropriate for the Pt/Pd prints. It's also one of their heaver weight papers.

When you preview the book on the webpage, the text (white text on dark charcoal background) was hard to read, but in the printing it worked very well.

The cover is probably the one that didn't turn out as good as the rest. The cover paper appears to be maybe plastic coated with a slight sheen to it, and while looks fine, it doesn't match the rest of the images in the book and doesn't necessarily work best for Pt/Pd images.

The one area I see that they have some minor challenges with is areas in the image were pure whites are next to almost whites. The printing system they use has a little difficulty sometimes distinguishing between the subtle differences. This shows up in a few of my images, but not very many.

Overall, I think that to have the opportunity to produce a professional book of your images is a great thing and I'm very pleased with it.

[Drew Bedo]

Nuce! Well done.

[ghostcount]

Placed my order.

Blurb has Labor Day promo code "KICKOFF" and get a $9.95 discount on Dan's book - good until August 31 (Sunday).

[Hugo Zhang]

I have just ordered one as well. :)

[chuckcars]

Very, very well done.

[Dan Dozer]

Thank to everyone for the nice comments - I really appreciate them all. I worked very hard to put this all together and am proud of the result.

Just got another couple of copies for myself. They included a discount code of "COOKIES" for 15% off that is good until October 31st.

[Robert Brummitt]

Have you thought of a download version as well? I have Tim Anderson's 100 Figure studies on my desk top to look at.

[Drew Bedo]

And now for a photography joke: This is an old one, so stop me if you've heard it.

Every time I try to do some nude photography I either catch a cold —or get sunburned!

[Matsushime]

Awesome work Dan!

[DennisD]

Dan,
The book is an excellent presentation of your well done images.
You have wonderful talent as evidenced by your work.
Also enjoyed your website.
Thanks for sharing.

Dennis Dilmaghani

[Dan Dozer]

Thanks to everyone for the nice comments. The self publishing process wasn't really difficult at all and one that seems tailor made for photographers.