Very proud to announce that yesterday lunch time I signed off the proofs for my 7th book. It’s my 5th with Pan Macmillan Australia. It hits the shelves on October the 24th. I was a little late in delivering this book as it supposed to be handed over in February. When I started this project I thought it would be a reasonably quick process as I didn’t have to draw anything, but how wrong I was. This also explains why I haven’t been doing much on the ‘blog’ front.
This is a book about Mindfulness through photography, I have been practicing what I term ‘Photopresent’ for the last 15 or so years. Mindfulness simply put is focussing your attention and awareness, without judgement to any activity at hand, could be walking, eating, listening or doing the dishes etc. Photography is all about focus and capturing a moment. The book encourages you to discover what no one else can see, capture moments that are as fleeting as our thoughts and to find beauty where it doesn’t typically exist. I also call this an ‘excited quiet’, it’s when I slow right down and it’s just me and what’s in front of me.
After my first submission my publisher Alex said ‘This will sell really well in Surry Hills (for those who don’t live in Sydney – this is our hip neighbourhood) but absolutely no where else’. Admittedly that initial constructive criticism was tough but it really forced me to get out there and push my ‘mindful’ eye, so thank you Alex. My typical visual magnet was anything urban or industrial so it was exciting to start snapping new and non urban pics. Typically by the end of the book making process I tend to really dislike what I’ve done only because I’ve been looking at it for over a year but this time round I am genuinely happy with it.
Hope you like when and if you see it. PS Launches in the UK in May 2014.
