City portrait #11 – Lazar Marčetić
Lazar Marčetić – director and manager of Saničani fish pond near Prijedor. I know Lazar for some time, and I tried to transfer my own vision of him in this portrait. I always saw him as an urban intellectual who live a quality and successful life. Active sportsman, involved in a cultural life of a city, successful career.
The idea was to show him as a worker (not a stereotypic manager kind a guy). So, fish net is symbolizing his occupation while basketball equipment (he was active basketball player for a long time and now he is helping in development of Prijedor sport life) symbolize his active way of life.
Blurb book review
Just a few days ago, I finally got my book I ordered over Blurb. It is printed photo story about SAMARICE I did two months ago.
Here are some thoughts about quality and service from Blurb.
First of all, you need to download their software Blurb Booksmart (just a few MB and really easy to use) that is your main tool in designing and uploading your photos on their server. Only bad thing about that kind of service is that they will print what ever you send to them, so be careful when creating a book.
I’m pretty much satisfied whit copy I’ve got. I choose their biggest format (large format landscape 33×28 cm or 13×11 inches), hard cover with dust jacket and premium quality paper (price difference was very small between standard and premium paper). Options were to have hard cover with image wrap but I decided no to do that because few posts on Blurb forum and because some practical experience from other photographers (look here). If you decide to order from Blurb, don’t be lazy and go read their forum a bit. Lot of useful informations from direct users of Blurb services.
Here are some pictures of my book:
Paper is thick, with silky finish (not sure about the weight – on Blurb site there is information that it weight 100 lbs). Binding looks solid and clean and durable.
Print quality is over my expectations. I went (before I ordered from Blurb) to several printerhouses and ask them to make me some samples with my photos. Each of them are using digital printers and the result was similar from every one. Photos had some magenta-ish tone, contrast was good but separation of black color was bad and nasty. Only thing that I liked was a tip from a printer guy who told me to turn off ICC profile when saving a jpg version of a picture.
Here is some magnifications of one page so you can see the quality:
Here is the page I used for magnification (right side)
Great thing about their service is that your book goes immediately to Blurb Bookstore where anybody can buy your book by the price you set for it. Also there is an competition Photography Book Now where you can apply with your Blurb book.
Bad thing about Blurb is that they don’t ship to Bosnia so I had to ask my friend from Slovenia to use his address and he sent me my book after he got it. Thx Borut again!!!
There are many similar service sites as Blur with different options, prices, etc.
Such as Asuka books (quality and expensive)
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