WCEU Photo Book

– This project is still in my head and I am currently thinking about creating the book, even if only for myself (August 2021) –

– This project is on hiatus for now. Sorry (August 24th, 2020) –

tl;dr: I am in the process of creating a photo book with my images that covers the first five years of WordCamp Europe. If you are interested in owning a copy of this book, leave your email address below.

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WordCamp Europe and me

I have been part of every WordCamp Europe to date, first as an attendee, then volunteer and now organizer. Actually, the first WordCamp Europe in Leiden in 2013 was the first WordCamp that I ever attended.

The first person I ever talked to at a WordCamp was Claudio. Now he and I co-own a web design-/development agency. Talk about life-altering… 🙂

I have been documenting WordCamps with my camera ever since – but WordCamp Europe, because of its mission and inclusive nature, bringing all of Europe (and the world) together, has always had a special place in my heart. Not to mention the people I met and the friends I made over the years.

I have gathered thousands of images from those events – many of them I have published on this very blog or on Flickr. All of them are released under a CC BY-SA license and many of you have used my images on your websites, in your blog posts or your presentations. I love that! (I wish more people would actually let me know where and how they used my images.)

In 2017 I had the privilege to become part of the WCEU organizing team, as the photography team lead.

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Sharing my images

Publishing images online has for the longest time been the only outlet for my photography – yet it recently felt not enough.

My dad, as the one who instilled the passion of photography in me from an early age, has for the longest time tried to talk me into printing my photographs. For him, you are not done until, you can hold an image in your hand. Until now I have always refused, because of all the hassle (and the cost) that is involved in printing. (Let’s be real: printers suck!)

Then recently, a friend showed my a photo book, she created of images that I had taken. I had photographed their wedding a couple of months prior and delivered the post processed images to them. She herself then went on to create a beautiful book, sorting, aligning all of my images in a wonderful way. Leafing through this book, seeing my work in this way, brought to life the wish to share more of my images in this form.

Since then I create a first photo book of my own. It documents the first year in the life of my daughter Lumi.

When I thought about which body of work might also be suited for this medium, I quickly realized that I’d love to see my documentation of WordCamp Europe in this way.

So this is how the idea of a wceu photo book came to life.

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A photo book about WordCamp Europe

Content

• The book will contain images from WordCamp Europe 2013 to 2017 2018.
• All of the photos were taken by me.
• All photos are black & white.
• All photos might have a short caption, describing what the photo shows, who is in the picture, etc.

Current status

(updated 2018-06-22)

• I have edited down the bulk of more than 5.000 images to about 560. I need to cut that in half to have something like 250 images that will go into the book.
• I have arranged some sample pages of my favorite images (for now without the captions), to give you an idea. See those below.
• I am in the process of asking someone to write a foreword. I very much like her writing. I think it will add an extra level of professionalism! Update: She said yes. 🙂
• I am hoping to have a prototype ready in June, in time to show it to people at WordCamp Europe 2018. Well, that didn’t happen. I am now aiming to have a prototype ready in the 4th quarter of 2018.

Example page spreads

Next steps

• Layout the book.
• Think of a really good title for the book. (Feel free to make suggestions!)
• Decide on a printing service.
• Get a printed proof.
• I will soon start the process of asking people for permission to use images of them in the book. This might take a while and will be a huge factor, if this project will even come to fruition at all.
• Find out if anyone else is interested in the book.

Quality & Price

I want the quality of this book to not suck. Therefore it will be printed on proper, high quality paper, that will last a life time. That brings the cost of a single book to about 120 – 140 Euros. It obviously gets much cheaper, if more people are interested and I can order more copies. (For 100 copies the price should to down to 100 Euros, etc.) These prices are not final. I need to do more research and start contacting different print services.

An important note on the financing of this project: I will not earn anything. The amount you pay will solely be used to cover the cost of printing and shipping the book. If by any chance, there is money left at the end, it will be donated to a charitable cause to help people attend WordCamps.

I can’t finance the printing of a large number of books in advance, therefore I will probably use a service like Indigogo or Kickstarter to secure the funds.

Are you interested?

Before starting a fundraising campaign, I want to at least get some basic idea, if I am the only one who actually wants such a book¹ or if others are interested as well.

For that reason I set up this mailing list. Please enter your email address below, if you are interested in owning a copy of the “WCEU photo book” (working title).

Please share this page, with people that also might enjoy this book.

Thank you!

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If you have any questions, email me!

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