Polychromes - Book Cover

After more months than I care to admit, I finally feel ready to release my first book of Polychromes, which I call, believe it or not, Polychromes.  I first developed the technique when producing my first photography exhibit, Legacies in Stone: Polychrome Series I.  Like many photographers, I try to look for stories in my subject matter in the hope of producing prints that will convey those stories, or, at least, trigger the imagination.  Until that show, I was happy with the results I had creating duotone prints in Adobe Photoshop Lightroom – happy until I ran into a photograph that would simply not yield its story to my ministering.

I love what Lightroom can do, and in the earlier version which I used to create Legacies in Stone, I liked the fact that all my changes were “global.” That is, I could not isolate parts of the image for adjustment.  If I increased the contrast, all the contrast changed; if I darkened the yellows, all yellows everywhere in the image were darkened, and so on.  Of course, I could have gone into Photoshop or any other image editing program to work, but I just like Lightroom’s more limited, perhaps primitive, approach – more like working in a traditional darkroom.  Newer versions of the program let you do some localized editing, but it is still fairly global in its approach … but enough about Lightroom.

Today, I want to announce the book, which is available through Blurb.com.  No, it’s not with a “real” press.  I did it myself, but it is good.  It will give you some insight into how and why I developed Polychromes.  I have annotated all the images from Polychrome Series I, including the 12 Vignettes.  There is also a preview  of Venice: City of the Sea, which is a work in progress.  I am offering the book with premium paper in both paperback and ImageWrap hardcover.  You may preview a sampling of pages below or on the Blurb.com web site, and please feel free to send any comments on to me.  Enjoy.

http://www.blurb.com/books/1295337