Bob Books Blog

Photobook Month - June 2012

2012-04-13T10:04:37Z

We are delighted to announce the return of Photobook Month this June with headline speaker Martin Parr.

Hosted at Hasselblad Studio in Shoreditch, London, the series of evening events will provide invaluable insight and inspiration to photographers, designers and all photobook lovers.

Each evening features an expert speaker who will be sharing their own take on photobooks – from what makes a beautifully designed book, to a run-down of the best photobooks of all time. Our guest speakers, will be sharing their extensive knowledge on the subject as well as making time to answer questions from the audience.

Attendees will get the chance to view samples of Bob Books entire range of high quality photobooks, speak with the team about solutions for their own projects and will also receive a free £20 Bob Books voucher.

Tickets are £30.00 each and will be on sale from 1^st of May.

Event Details

June 6th, 6pm - Mike Trow

Commissioning photo editor of British Vogue and portrait photographer.

Putting together the ultimate photographic portfolio - advice and examples of portfolios and how they are essential tools in securing projects and clients.

Get your tickets for Photobook Month with Mike Trow

June 12^th, 6pm - Martin Parr

Photographer, Photobook expert and member of Magnum Agency.

Undoubtedly the expert! Speaking on the history of photobooks – what makes a great photobook with a discussion around the photobook format. Introduction by John Brown, Chairman Bob Books.

Get your tickets for Photobook Month with Martin Parr

June 20^th, 6pm - Marianne Taylor

Photographer, Winner of ‘Best Wedding Photographer’ at the 2012 Wedding Industry Awards

A discussion on how a more editorial approach to shooting weddings has influenced her book designs, with advice on marketing and selling books as part of a package.

Get your tickets for Photobook Month with Marianne Taylor

June 26^th, 6pm - Jeremy Leslie

London Based Creative Director specializing in Editorial Design

Essential Design Elements for Self Publishing. Founder of Mag Culture gives his take on what makes a ‘stand out’ publication. Introduction by John Brown, Chairman Bob Books.

Get your tickets for Photobook Month with Jeremy Leslie

Due to the nature of the venue, limited spaces will be available. It is advised to book early to avoid disappointment.

About the speakers

Mike Trow

Mike Trow has been commissioning photo editor at British Vogue since 2005 and is responsible for commissioning, production and art direction of most of the portrait, interior, reportage and house shoots of the magazine. Mike is also a photographer and shoots some portraits for the magazine himself.

Prior to Vogue, Mike was picture editor of both Jack Magazine under James Brown and the notorious Bizarre magazine with John Brown Publishing.

“Working with great photographers such as Bailey, Henry Bourne, Jason Schmidt amongst others, as well as seeing new talent is a great privilege and a lot of fun,”

Get tickets for Photobook Month with Mike Trow

Martin Parr

© MagnumMartin Parr was born in Epsom, Surrey. As a boy, his interest in photography was encouraged by his grandfather George Parr, himself a keen amateur photographer.

Parr studied photography at Manchester Polytechnic from 1970 to 1973. To support his career as a freelance photographer, he took on various teaching assignments between 1975 and the early 1990s. At the beginning of the 1980s his work aimed to mirror the lifestyle of ordinary British people, reflecting the social decline and distress of the working class during the era of Margaret Thatcher. He earned an international reputation for his oblique approach to social documentary, and for innovative imagery. In 1994 he became a member of Magnum after much heated debate over his provocative photographic style. Parr was appointed Professor of Photography in 2004 at the University of Wales, and was Guest Artistic Director for Rencontres d'Arles in the same year. In recent years, he has developed an interest in film-making, and has started to use his photography in different contexts, such as fashion and advertising. www.martinparr.com

Get tickets for Photobook Month with Martin Parr

Marianne Taylor

Marianne Taylor is an award-winning wedding photographer, most recently chosen as the National Winner of the title ‘Best Wedding Photographer’ at The 2012 Wedding Industry Awards.

She combines editorial-style wedding photography with fine-art photojournalism, and her work has been published on the pages of top wedding magazines and blogs the world over. Coming from a magazine design background, Marianne has always been fascinated by telling stories via photographs beautifully laid out in a book form, and design plays a big part in her business ethos. Originally from Finland, Marianne has called UK her home since the late 90’s and her wedding work is in high demand all over the world. She lists her greatest achievement as creating a successful business around her passion. www.mariannetaylorphotography.co.uk, www.mnoo.com

Get tickets for Photobook Month with Marianne Taylor

Jeremy Leslie

Jeremy Leslie is a London-based creative director specialising in editorial design. He runs magCulture, providing consultancy and advice to publishers and other clients working with content for print and digital media.

He has art directed monthly (Blitz) and weekly (Time Out) magazines and has recently been developing iPad apps for several magazines (Port, Frieze). During the noughties he was creative director at John Brown Publishing, overseeing the creation of award-winning projects for Virgin Atantic, Waitrose and M-real papers. He also devised the children’s encyclopedia Pick Me Up for Dorling Kindersley. Jeremy is a passionate advocate for editorial design, regularly contributing to the creative press and international design conferences on the subject as well as judging awards competitions. He was recently elected a member of international design organisation AGI.

He is currently working on a new book about magazine design.

magCulture has also recently launched an online shop, selling a carefully selected range of independent magazines. Read his blog at magCulture.com/blog

Get tickets for Photobook Month with Jeremy Leslie

About Hasselblad Studio

The Hasselblad Studio is believed to be a first for a camera manufacturer - a studio designed for the benefit of its own customers and users. Hasselblad owners in the UK can now also enjoy the benefit of a Central London studio space, available for hire at preferential, highly discounted rates. www.hasselbladstudio.com

Follow our updates on Photobook Month via Twitter using #photobookmonth and on our Facebook page.

Book of the Month - March 2012

2012-04-13T09:59:38Z

Congratulations to Josephine Farr who’s won our March Book of the Month competition with her book on typography Text Scripts Scores

Here’s what our winner had to say:

I suppose all I can say in return is that it's amazing for something like
typography to be noticed. I am a third year theatre student and my
dissertation is based on how typography performs in today's society,
winning this month definitely boosts my confidence and confirms to me
that I am on the right tracks!

Is your book brilliant? To enter Book of the Month, simply publish your book in our Bob Bookshop and send your book’s URL to competition@bobbooks.co.uk. Full details are available here. Good luck!

Egg-citing Easter Photo Challenge

2012-04-01T08:01:16Z

Over the Easter holidays we have a new photo challenge for you...

The theme of the photo competition is “egg” with the winning entry receiving the fantastic iconic rabbit lamp pictured above.

The “egg” theme is open to your interpretation, so let your imagination run wild and hop to it! Enter as many photos as you like.

We have three fun ways to enter – Twitter, Pinterest and Instagram.

Simply take a photo with the theme of "egg" and then tweet, pin or instagram your photographs tagging them with #BobBooksBunny to be in with a chance to win our egg-cellent prize.

We’ll be re-pinning all entries to our own Pinterest page, so follow our #BobBooksBunny board to watch the challenge unfold.

Please note this bunny is yet to receive its passport, so the competition is open to UK residents only.

Twitter: an online social networking service that enables users to send and read "tweets". You can create your free account here. Follow Bob Books tweets.

Pinterest: a new pinboard-style social photo sharing website. Create your free account here. And follow our pins.

Instagram: is a free photo sharing app - available on iPhone, iPad, iPod Touch and now Android. Download from the Apple App Store or Google Play. You can now follow us on Instagram too.

Competition rules:

The competition opens on April 1st and the closing date for entries is midnight April 30th, 2012.
All photograph entries must be tagged with #BobBooksBunny and be publically visible on either Twitter, Pinterest or Instagram.
All images submitted must be the work of the individual submitting them, the entrant must own the copyright. Copyright of all images submitted for this competition remains with the respective entrants.
In the event of unforeseen circumstances, the Bob Books reserves the right at any time to cancel, modify or supersede the competition (including altering prizes) if, in their sole discretion, a competition is not capable of being conducted as specified.
All prizes are non transferable and there are no cash alternatives.
Entries received which are not deemed to be appropriate for the theme of the competition will not be considered to be a valid entry.
Bob Books regret that only winning entries will be acknowledged personally.
Paid employees of Bob Books are excluded from winning.
The judges’ decision is final; no correspondence will be entered into.

Have fun and good luck!

Book of the Month - February 2012

2012-03-30T11:08:41Z

Congratulations to Neil Sharpe, who’s won our February Book of the Month competition with his book Neil Sharpe Photo yearbook 2011.

Here’s what our winner had to say:

I’ve produced a ‘best of ...’ collection using Bobbooks for the past three years, and have always been very impressed with the finished quality and the speed of delivery. This is the first time I’ve entered the ‘book of the month’ competition, and I’m delighted to have won - roll on ‘book of the year’.

Neil's won a free Bob Books photobook plus a place in the 2012 Book of the Year competition.

Is your book brilliant? Think you’ve got what it takes to win our Book of the Month competition?
To enter Book of the Month, simply publish your book in our Bob Bookshop and send your book’s URL to competition@bobbooks.co.uk. Full details are available here. Good luck!

The Year One Project: Planning content

2012-03-23T10:09:33Z

Grandma and Baby © Julia Boggio StudiosLately, I’ve been thinking a lot about the movie Beaches. It’s one of the biggest tearjerkers of all time and one scene keeps playing in my head. After her young daughter makes a comment that they have the same hands, Barbara Hershey, who is dying of heart disease, looks desperately for a picture of her mother so she can check to see if they also have the same hands.

Whenever I see my own mother, which isn’t very often as we live on separate continents, I always look at her hands. They are the same as mine: long fingers with deep blue veins running along the back. I look at Baby’s little fingers and wonder if they’ll be like mine one day.

The reason I’m dwelling on this is because I’m planning what to put in my Year One Project book. What information will have the most meaning to her in the future? It’s not just about pretty pictures of her first year; it’s about her family and the people we all were at the time of her birth. It’s about the world we created for her.

So I’ve brainstormed some of the content I’d like to put in there. I don’t know if all of it will make the final project, but it’s good to get the ideas down:

- Her birth story
- The story of how James and I met
- Her family tree
- Brief descriptions of what everyone in her family was doing with their lives at the time of her birth
- News from around the world at the time of her birth (we have all the newspapers from her birth day)
- A handwritten letter from both James and me, photographed on a table
- A list of the songs and books that she loved in Year One
- Pictures of her favourite toys and her nursery
- Her milestones, because there are so many in the first year
- Milestone photo shoots and reportage shoots and just-for-fun photo shoots
- A gallery of photos from James’ and my iPhones because we’ve taken LOADS, including a lot from my Hipstamatic phase

In my mind’s eye, I imagine her looking at this book at various points in her life, but I believe it will have the most meaning for her when she becomes a mother herself. I hope this book starts a new family tradition and that she’ll make one for her baby one day.

But before that can happen, I have a lot of work to do. And I have to coach James, so he can take a good picture of my hands.

Julia Boggio owns one of Britain’s most famous wedding and portrait studios, www.juliaboggiostudios.com, along with her husband, James. She is a regular columnist for Photo Professional magazine and her work has appeared in a number of publications, including The Times Style Magazine, You & Your Wedding, Condé Nast Brides, and The British Journal of Photography. James and Julia are also renowned for doing the dance from Dirty Dancing at their wedding, the video of which has had almost ten million hits on You Tube and landed them on The Oprah Winfrey Show, where Julia danced with Patrick Swayze. Her mummy blog, www.icarriedawatermelon.co.uk, tells the story of what happened next.

And the winners are...

2012-03-16T15:50:49Z

Wishing you all a very happy Mothering Sunday this weekend.

We'd like to congratulate to our four talented winners of our Mother's Day competition. They received a £50 Fortnum & Mason Gift Card to treat their mums. Enjoy!

Here are the winning entries:

B-elly laughs galore,
O-pen arms, hugs and more,
B-ig hearted, never judges,
B-abysitting! She never begrudges,
O-ften in pain , but, never moans,
O-utgoing! Always friends on the phone,
K-ids adore her, she's such fun,
S-pecial, kind, caring..the worlds best MUM!

By Deborah Swain

The Oscar Wilde quote is right.

When my mum was alive it made me cringe that I was turning into her, now it comforts me.

I remember travelling down with her (on a whim) on the Caledonian Sleeper for a few nights in London, where we discovered Fortnum's with its powder room, heavenly lingerie department, food hall and divine afternoon tea service. We got a bit tipsy on champagne and had a wonderful time at the cheese counter, overbuying, then trying to cram our purchases into the hotel mini-bar!

I'm pregnant again and am secretly hoping for a girl I can share this silly stuff with too.

I'm sure you wouldn't mind if I won and spent it on cheese?!

By Kathryn

I love my mum because she always let me lick the spoon, always gave me the biggest slice and the strongest hugs. She taught me that everything will be ok in the end, and if it's not ok it's not the end. She also gave me great taste in handbags!

By Helen

She's caring, compassionate,
Selfless and smart,
Bossy but brilliant,
With a wonderful heart,

Loyal and loving,
Always thinks of others,
I'd give her a medal,
If they made them for mothers,

My world, my everything,
My champion, my chum,
My role-model, my anchor,
My fabulous mum!

By Ellie Sutch

Photosynth yourself...

2012-03-02T09:01:01Z

I'm a bit embarassed to admit, but since I switched from Blackberry to iPhone last spring, 95% of my photos are taken with my phone. I have a great Canon SLR and a brilliant Leica Digilux2, but they are just a bit too heavy to carry around - and the iPhone is soo much fun.

One of my favourite photography apps is Photosynth. It takes a little bit of practice to get the technique right, but once you get the hang of it, you can create a full 360 degree of your surroundings and share it online. The results are truly incredible.

Here's an example of a Photosynth panorama I created in September while I was in New York. The whole thing took just a minute or two.

But the mobile app only just touches the surface of what Photosynth can do. The video below from Ted.com features Blaise Agüera y Arcas, the architect of Bing Maps at Microsoft and the co-creator of Photosynth, talking about building augmented reality into searchable maps. Amazing!

Have you created any Photosynth panoramas? Feel free to share them below.

Win a £50 Fortnum & Mason Gift Card...

2012-02-21T11:14:47Z

All women become like their mothers. That is their tragedy. No man does. That’s his.

- Oscar Wilde

In celebration of those wonderful mothers, we have four £50 Fortnum & Mason Gift Cards to give away, so you can make your mum feel extra special this Mothering Sunday (18th March).

To be in with a chance to win, simply comment on this post below telling us why you love your mum.

You can also enter via facebook. First ‘like’ the Bob Books facebook page and then comment on our wall telling us why you love your mum.

The Fortnum’s gift card can be used online, over the telephone or in their Piccadilly store. Just make sure that you spend it on your mum!

Post your entry by 13th March 2012.

Please note: Our photobook order dates for UK Mother’s Day deliveries are 4th March for photographic large landscape, large portrait books and small landscape hardback books and 11th March for all other photobooks.

Competition rules:

Please read the competition rules (terms and conditions) before entering.

By entering this competition you are agreeing to these terms.
A total of 4 winning entries will be selected.
Entry comments should be between 3 - 50 words.
The competition is open to all UK residents over the age of 18.
The competition closing date for entries is midnight March 13th, 2011.
In the event of unforeseen circumstances, the Bob Books reserves the right at any time to cancel, modify or supersede the competition (including altering prizes) if, in their sole discretion, a competition is not capable of being conducted as specified.
All prizes are non transferable and there are no cash alternatives.
Bob Books regret that only winning entries will be acknowledged personally.
Paid employees of Bob Books are excluded from entering.
The judges’ decision is final; no correspondence will be entered into.
Blog winning entries will be contacted via email on 14th March, so be sure to include your email in the "Author email field" when posting your comment. Email addresses will not be shared or made public.
Facebook winning entries will be announced on our facebook page on 14th March.

Good Luck and Have fun!

The Year One Project: Introduction

2012-02-17T09:00:28Z

In 2011, I gave birth to my first child. After three years of trying to conceive, she finally burst into this world to The Sound of Music soundtrack and has been singing for us ever since (well, with crying and yelling mixed in).

Towards the end of my pregnancy, the prospect of becoming a parent made me intensely curious about my own beginnings. I started quizzing my parents about my birth and my milestones. What was my mother’s birth plan? Response: What’s a birth plan? (Apparently, it wasn’t a big thing in the Seventies.) Other questions included: was I breastfed? When did I roll over? When did I start crawling? What was my favourite toy?

Let’s just say that, if you were in a pub quiz and one of the rounds was about me, you wouldn’t want my parents on your team. They couldn’t remember my first word!

So that’s how my Year One project was born. The objective: to make a book for my daughter starting with her birth story and ending with her first birthday party and everything in between.

The great thing is that we’re a long way from the Seventies, where paper scrapbooks and photo albums with sticky sleeves were the norm. In my case, the ravages of time and having divorced parents mean that the family photo albums of my youth have been dismantled, distributed, and some of the photographs have been lost. Now, we have the luxury of living in the digital age and the opportunity to make professional-grade photo books. And the best thing is that we can print as many copies as we want. I’ll be printing loads and flinging them to the four corners of the earth to make sure there is always a copy for her should she lose the one I give her.

During the past eight months, I have been taking many, many photographs of Baby; she’s going to have a bigger portfolio than Kate Moss by age 1. I’ve also been writing about my journey as a mother on my blog, www.icarriedawatermelon.co.uk, which will provide some good copy for the book. However, putting together a book of the scope that I am imagining needs a lot of content and, of course, good design.

Over the course of this year, I’ll be sharing with you my progress with The Year One Project. Hopefully, it will give you some ideas about things you can include in your own family photo books, like photo shoot projects and written exercises, to help make your book just that little bit more of a family heirloom. Also, I’ll share our design thoughts and give you some tips for designing your own book.

I’m really looking forward to going on this journey with you.

Ask with Bob...

2012-02-14T07:00:46Z

In honour of Valentine's Day we wanted to share with you a lovely story we heard from one of our customers. We talked to Paul Smith who proposed to his girlfriend with his Bob Book.

What inspired you to propose with a photo book?
Everyone wants a "special" way of proposing and due to having a new baby I couldn't simply whisk her away for a weekend in Paris or New York. I started thinking about alternative options and stumbled across the idea of creating a photo book. I loved the idea and it seemed like a great way of showing how I felt.

Can you tell us a bit more about your book?
My book is called "So far…" and charts the story of our relationship through photos. It shows pictures of us through our time together and special images of the places that we've been. It leads up to the birth of our daughter and shows pictures of the day she was born. It then says "So, what's next?" followed by "Will you marry me?" on the last page.

So, how did you go about proposing?
I took her down to a nice hotel in the New Forest and got the hotel staff to set up their best room with a dozen red roses, a bottle of champagne and they even dressed it with their wedding decorations. As we walked in I gave her the book and as she reached the last page I got down on one knee.

And, of course, we all want to know – did she say yes?
After she'd stopped crying, she did!
She loves showing the book to her friends and family and is now very paranoid that she'll lose it. I may have to get a few more printed just in case…!

Congratulations, Paul! We so pleased that we could play a part in your special day and can't wait to see the wedding book ;-)