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About The Book
Shortly after returning from Alaska, Roger and Cindy realized they had taken an enormous number (I believe it 4,756) of photographs. The Bells had also taken a great number of photos, many of which paralleled what C and R did (after all, we went to many of the same places). The issue became what to do with all of those photos. Since we were operating solely in digital, there were no prints, only files. Then, as luck would have it, R remembered the site MyPublisher.com, which specializes in turning digital files into a hard bound photo album. He had used the company the year before to make a birthday book for Cindy commemorating a trip to San Antonio to see Ben perform at State. The seed was germinating....
One thing Roger had not liked about MyPublisher was the limited number of layouts available. They were pretty basic, allowing one to choose static designs and drop in photos. Simply put, this would not work for a project this large. R went to work designing his own layouts in Photoshop CS, a project that would take roughly six weeks. Not only are the layouts in the Alaska book original, but so are many of the elements. Remember seeing the Polaroids on this page? These were "hand" drawn in PS, as were the negatives and slides on that page. Wanting to use new elements in new pages, R also designed large format negatives, such as in the top left corner of this page. Many of the pages also contain scans of souvenirs and travel documents we picked up along the way. R's favorite layout was for Vancouver, although Butchart Gardens runs a close second.
Once all the 50 or so pages were designed and put together, they were whisked away digitally to MyPublisher for printing. Two coffee table sized books were produced; one for the Bells, the other for the Macons. After seeing the large edition, we ordered a handful of small, paperback copies. These are far more portable, but have not held up to being handled as well.
We did drag a variety of photo equipment to Alaska, most of it manufactured by Nikon. There were two D100 digital bodies, one of which had the MB-D100 battery pack. These were extremely portable, and the long battery life kept things very convenient. The primary long lens for R was the Nikon 80-400 VR, which, like a dope, he sold shortly after returning. This lens was used for most of the eagle shots, as well as the gull seen here. The short lenses we used were the Nikon 24-120 VR and 24-85 AF-S. They were lightweight, and very convenient for carrying all day.
Anyway, thanks for looking at our photos. We can hardly wait to go back for The View from Alaksa.
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