JJP Designs | Photo Ninja

 Why do we still collect books? Well, I do... and apparently so do many others. Given the availability of digital texts, why do so many still love books? For me, it is the Essence of a Book... Material - Paperback/Hardback... Weight/Texture of the pages... Type of binding... The ink... the color... was it set via letterpress? traditional letterpress or modern? Can you feel the indentation of the letterpress or is it perfectly elegantly smooth? Size - Quarto... Sextodecimo... Folio... It's Tactile - the pages, the printing, the binding... everything about it... It's Three Dimensional - you can relate to the events within the story not only through the words but via their location within the block... how far through the block, how far up/down/left/right on the page - recto or verso... The typeface... The spacing/leading... The simple decision of margins... Illustrations - wood block, hand drawn, black and white or color... How is the title first presented to you - gilded, emb...

Unlike a 'written' book, which contains a finite amount of words, a picture book contains literally every word you know. I love to read, but I enjoy picture books for the simple reason that I get to read whatever story I see in the images based on who I am and how I interpret the images based on my history, my joys and sorrows, and even my day right up to the moment I pick up the book. Maybe that's one of the reasons I love photography so much - the ability to capture a moment that tells an entire story simply by making a record of the configuration of light at one pivotal moment. No sound. No motion. No reference what so ever beyond the light as it was configured and frozen at that exact moment. There is an amazing elegance in capturing that one amazing story telling image and I can feel it in my core every time I capture 'that' image on any given day out shooting. That feeling is what drives me to keep rolling off shots... it is the very core of my per...

I distinctly remember seeing, truly seeing, the shape and quality of the light. I don’t even really recall seeing the bird or the table specifically… I remember specifically seeing the light and the shadows. That is what we are always told in photography – to see the light. I knew that. I practiced that. I've even tried to teach it. But that was the day that truly, deep in my photography soul, it … clicked. Wow! I didn’t even see that pun coming, but it was AWESOME when I looked back and found it just sitting there starting back at me. That is what a photograph is – a record of the light present at any given moment. More specifically, a record of the shape of the light… the contrasts that create the shapes we perceive. That’s really what we, humans, excel at – detecting contrast. We are also AMAZING at detecting patterns… but that’s for another blog. ;) We have a really hard time seeing a camouflaged animal because there is a lack of contrast. It’s much typically much easier fo...