civilized ku # 159 ~ SoFoBoMo
Friday, February 20, 2009 at 03:31PM 
Afternoon light on the powder room wall • click to embiggenJust recently I received an email from Gordon McGregor with a mention that this year's SoFoBoMo event(?) had launched.
In case you are familiar with what a SoFoBoMo is, here's what the SoFoBoMo website says:
Each year, a loosely organised international group of photographers decide to stop procrastinating and make a real physical book in a month or less.
This is the second year of the event - I keep calling it an "event" because I don't know what else to call it. In its first year 60 people participated and the results can be viewed HERE. Although, in fact, you can maybe see them because clicking on the them leads to a wide array of results.
All that said, I was aware of SoFoBoMo last year but after investigating the event and its rules, I decided that it was not for me. Even though I make books and feel rather strongly that everyone who calls themselves a photographer / picture maker / artist who uses photography / et al should make books, the project (new word for it) had a few rules that felt rather camera-clubby.
To be honest, the project has very few rules but what there were/are I found to be rather dumb.
First and foremost on the dumb list was the rule that you did not actually have to make a finished, i.e. printed, book. Apparently the organizers believe that going through the effort to make pictures for and to design/layout a book, not an actual book itself, is the point of the exercise. That effort is/can be a very good thing but that effort is one very important step away from producing a good printed book.
It should go without saying that the rules obviously do not prevent a participant from going all the way. I have no way of knowing but I would imagine that many participants actually produced printed books.
But that rule alone would not stop me from participating. No, the one that gets to me is this one:
How many photos do I need for the book?
At least 35 - large enough that it can't be flung together from a single afternoon's photography, short enough to be doable...
I'm sorry but that one's 2-parts dumb for me.
dumb - part 1 - what the hell is wrong with a book that features just, lets say, 10 really strong pictures? Is a book with 100 pictures better than one with just 10 (or 35)? I mean, what if you want to make a book titled, Portraits of the Most Important People in My Life and, lo and behold, you only have 10 people who qualify?
What if you want to make a book of staged/contrived pictures that are very time consuming to produce - planning, models, locations, etc.? With only 30 days during which both the picture making and the book design/layout must be executed, 35 pictures would be nearly impossible.
No doubt there are plenty of subjects/themes that could be accomplished within the time frame, but why impose an arbitrary constraint that limits what someone might like to do?
Which leads me to -
dumb - part 2 - the part that says 35 pictures minimum so that the project can't be "flung together" from a single afternoon's photography. What the hell is wrong with a book that documents an event that spans only an afternoon's (morning's, evening's) time? I can think of quite a few events that might be worthy of some serious picturing that are very short-lived.
A few years ago, I gave serious consideration to picturing my step-daughter's prom night from start to finish. If I had done so, 35 pictures would have been the tip of the iceberg. Then there's the small town, Friday night, under-the-lights high school football game ritual - the picture possibilities from that are nearly endless.
Of course, there is always the possibility that one might end up with only 23 strong pictures from either of those events ...
Let me repeat myself - No doubt there are plenty of subjects/themes that could be spaced out over/within the time frame, but why impose an arbitrary constraint that limits what someone might like to do?
To be honest, the idea of producing a book, start to finish, within a month's time is a perfectly valid rule/constraint and challenge for such a project. But proscribing constraints like the 2-part dumb ones above are a deal breaker for me.
Maybe my imagination is bigger than that. Maybe I just don't like being told how many pictures a book must have or that I can't make any number of good pictures in an afternoon's time. Maybe I don't cotton to the notion that any book with fewer than 35 pictures or that is made over an afternoon's time is something that is just flung together.
And, please, this is NOT a you-shouldn't-do-it rant. It is merely an entry on my blog about why I won't be doing it.
Reader Comments (4)
Great points.
There really is nothing wrong with participating in the "project" and live by your own rules.
Might even get to demonstrate the validity of your ideas.
In the larger scheme of making photobooks, I'd agree with your assessment. But then SoFoBoMo isn't really aimed at skilled photobookers like yourself. As way of explanation (not trying to get defensive) as a SoFoBoMoer there are 3 points to bear in mind:
1. this is as much about the process of doing a book as the quality of the product. It's a get off your butt and do kind of thing
2. it should feel like a challenge to all those who participate, which goes some way to the idea of 35 images. Actually some of last year's didn't have 35, no big deal.
3. the barrier to entry should be low. Expecting everyone to shell out on an actual physical book would put many off. If you've got a camera and a computer, you're off. I think that we all should strive to do so, however.
The big thing is, once people get into the habit of thinking about & producing a book, many more will be encouraged to go get their stuff into print.
Perhaps if this "is merely an entry on my blog about why I won't be doing it," you should have avoided phrases like "dumb idea."
Sure it's limited, sure it's constrained, but it also got a large number of people thinking about the whole process.
After thinking (and not doing) a lot about it last year, I've come up with a project that I'm going to give a shot.
The interesting question in all this is this one : 'but why impose an arbitrary constraint that limits what someone might like to do?'
There's a whole lifetime of discussion to have on that one. Do constraints enable, or limit creativity? Do boundaries make people focus and be more inventive, or stifle and kill inspiration?
The notion of the unfettered artist with the blank canvas is a fairly new one. Sometimes that limitless potential can freeze the mind. Given a narrow set of constraints, people often seem to find they come up with something more original - in part - often because they resist them and try to do something against those boundaries, subvert them, fight back, or just go along with them and let themselves let go of the defined constraints and think about the other things.
The fundamental constraint of SoFoBoMo is the one month limit - all new pictures, all done in a month. The main point is to help people not get caught up in endless second guessing of decisions, because there isn't time for that.
The other constraint (the number of images) is I suppose a goal, something that aims to stop it being a glorified Picture A Day project, because there aren't enough days. It is also a goal that aims to force people to learn something about image management - handling one image through the book production flow isn't very interesting, handling a few hundred is probably overwhelming the first time around.
So yes - the constraints are all arbitrary. Most are. I suppose the other extreme of no constraints at all, would be equally fine. Everyone is currently doing that challenge, right now - it doesn't seem to get so many books completed.