by Michael Marlborough
Five years ago, I joined ILFORD Australia as a technical sales representative dealing with all aspects of the photographic trade. This exposed (no pun intended) me to the varied ways of publishing. At that time, we were affiliated with a pre-press wholesale company that was a sister company to ILFORD under the International Paper banner. From here, I got to see all aspects of four-color printing and publishing in general.
The nude has always been a major goal in my photographs from Day One, but it was a few years before I could get past the hardest part of nude photography--finding a model. After that hurdle was covered and I began compiling quite a few images, I kept being told by friends, family, and colleagues that I should get them into book format. Therefore, over the last nine years, I've been photographing nudes with the intention of publishing a book(s) of my work--something personal and intimate which people could afford and still feel special about owning because they know the photographer. My initial thought years ago was to have actual photographs bound into a book--an edition of twenty-five. This would have become very time-consuming, as I prefer to print on fiber-based paper, and the time/cost factor would not have made it feasible.
Needless to say, over the next four years, my desire and direction for my book changed almost monthly. The project was getting to the point of not happening. One day, I happened to start talking to a customer of mine who had just installed an IRIS Inkjet printer. (IRIS is a product in Australia that ILFORD represents, and this customer was renting the unit for six months.) He was interested in producing books to show what the IRIS could do, and I was interested in producing a book. Immediately, we started to talk of what we could produce, how many, etc. After many late nights printing in my very spartan darkroom and then scanning/retouching the files on my old APPLE Macintosh, we finally had to choose from about seventy images that spanned eight years of work and get that down to twenty-five! Not an easy task, but we got it and the book started to be printed on the IRIS.
We decided on ARCHES WaterColour Paper as this gave the images a very artistic feel--one of the main reasons for deciding on using the IRIS. We were aiming for twenty-five books. However, part way through the printing, it became obvious there were problems with my customer and his ability to pay the equipment rent! Basically, he wasn't. After my superiors said the IRIS had to come out of their premises as the outstanding rental was building up, the print run came tumbling down from twenty-five to just six! We got the six books off the premises before they closed, and I had them bound. After four months of running around, I finally had my books.
This book has taken four months of stress and effectively four years of procrastination to complete. The first edition books were pre-sold, and I had placed a nominal value on them of $100.00 Australian, a figure I thought was reasonable due to the hard work that went into producing them. All my pre-sale customers-- bar one--said the books were too expensive! I was devastated. No one wanted them. I went home and held them, all bound in black, in my hands. I said I would keep them all to myself.
After a while, I realized I'd have to sell them to make back some of the Cost; they would be priced at $250.00 AUD. At this price, I sold all five, keeping one for myself, within a week. This accomplishment started me off on my next version of the book--to be produced at home on a new EPSON photo stylus printer. This also proved to be a drama as the IRIS files that had been retouched initially had been erased by my customer, and I was left with the raw files. These files were covered in fingerprints and dust.
Another four months of retouching and file/printer testing ensued. This job (went more smoothly) than it did the first time around, as I purchased a new APPLE G3 PowerMac, which made working on the files much easier. I am now part way through this second edition and expect to have them all finished and hopefully sold by the end of September. The cost of this edition is much less than the first--$85.00 AUD--and pre-orders are starting to pile up. I start my next book of nudes in September, again all female, but there will hopefully be one on men early in the new year.