Middle Ground – Rough Edit

Middle Ground, Rough Edit, 2018 copyright Douglas Stockdale

While continuing to document my morning walks as a potential project, back in the studio I am developing my Middle Ground book project. At the end of last year I announced that this project is my MoPLA submission. So over the holidays I was working on the rough edit of my photo files.

The initial goal is to reduce the 1,060 photographs for this project into something more manageable. Thus I can say that I am pass Stage 1 of my photobook project per my Guide to Self-Publishing an Indie Artist Book and probably finished Stage 2, rough edit. I am currently hovering around 55 photographs to work with for the photobook layout. I have also reworked each of these image files multiple times to get the cropping, framing, color management, sharpening and contrast where I think I want it.

At the moment the goal for the book is between 20 and 26 interior images, so that means another 50% reduction for the final edit. Which I think is not bad place to be right now. The next step gets trickier; which and where of each photograph in the sequencing of the final edit.

I am still on track for a self-publishing release for the Spring 2018 publication season. Once I quickly finish the fine edit, I will still send out an inquiry to a couple of other publishers to see if they might consider this for their Fall 2018 release (maybe consider a spring 2019 release with the right deal, but I think time is of the essence for the purpose of this political satire). Still a big list of things yet to do!

Also at a place where it might make sense to upload this final selection on my web site, so more about that later when it’s completed.

Cheers!