In The Zone - My first e-book

 When I won my Goodman Zone Z1 in the giveaway hosted by Dora Goodman and PetaPixel.com I thought a lot about what I hoped to achieve with it. My first goal was to take a half decent photo with it and my film of choice was Fomapan. It's cheap, readily available and I don't mind making a pigs ear of it at £5 a roll. I set about learning how to use this unique camera with regular walks in the countryside near my home and it was a very steep learning curve.

I soon began to get some half decent photos, despite that bloody dark slide being my nemesis, and I began to give more thought to what my main goal was with this camera. Long time readers will know I have written about this camera often enough over the last few months, I have waxed very lyrical on here about it as I had fallen in love with this quirky 3D printed box from Budapest. The last time I fell so utterly in love I married her. That realisation gave me some impetus to make a big effort to master the camera and that bloody dark slide once and for all.

The learning curve is getting less steep with each roll of film I put through it and I decided to go through my photos to pick my favourites just to see how far I had come. As it happens I had enough photos to put a small photo book together to document my first few months of owning and using my Goodman Zone Z1 on a regular basis. I began to formulate a plan and I had to learn how to use Affinity Publisher, the software that I used to create my book.

That was a lesson all by itself and I was woefully out of my depth.

It took me a while to figure it out, but with time and some help from my wife Jo and my friend Dave Whenham, I put my book together. It took a lot of drafts, several changes of layout and some sage advice from Jo and Dave before I had something that looked right. I didn't want it to be half arsed, this is the difference between a book and bog paper. I may want to get this printed in the not too distant future. If it looks crap you wouldn't think twice about it come the next bog roll famine.

I have learned so much through the course of this project. It's easy to think that writing a book is easy. Writing is the easy bit, you can trust me on that one. I had never done anything like this before and it has made my brain hurt in ways I was worried about at times as the project progressed. After many drafts, a lot of paper, printer ink and frayed nerves later I had something I was happy to publish and put out into the wild.

Why an e-book? you may ask, well I'll tell thee. I have published it as an e-book as I wanted this to be as much my own work as possible. The camera was an unexpected gift and it inspired me to get out of my 35mm comfort zone and learn something new. It has fried my brain, gave me a nemesis that I still have to conquer once and for all and gave me as much joy as I could hope for in the space of a few short months.

I had to learn to compose my photos, focus the lens, work out the exposure times, develop the film, scan it to my computer and make it look presentable. Basically I had to learn how to be a photographer all over again and I am so grateful to the Photography Gods for giving me this opportunity.

So here it is, In The Zone, my very first e-book available to buy as a digital download right now on my Ko-Fi shop using the link below. There are also links to PetaPixel and Dora Goodman Cameras, give them some love. I put everything I have into this project both physically and mentally, the price is £3 of her majesty's finest sterling and I really hope you enjoy it. I have a feeling it wont be my last.

In The Zone e-book 
PetaPixel
Dora Goodman Cameras