So today, the 26th of May, marks one week until my sofobomo book has to be completed and submitted. Thankfully, I’m nearly there.

I decided, for some reason that has evaded me since I began the project, to do it the ‘interesting way’. Perhaps a bit of an old school method. Yep, decided to do the whole thing on film. *Sigh*

I’ve all but finished the processing now. Well, I say processing when what I actually mean is dust & misc crap removal. Much of it anyway. I don’t have the time, patience or inclination to remove all of it as I’m sure anyone that’s scanned film in the past will understand. It’s only now, that I’m done with the actual photos and beginning to work on the layout, that I can look back at the last couple of weeks and almost smile. Almost…

I shot five (if I remember correctly) rolls of film. Ilford Pan F+ 50. I bought a whole load of it before the project started in anticipation that I might do something sofobomoish with it. Perhaps read the previous post to understand in some way why I chose to complete the project on film instead of choosing the much easier digital route. I even got it developed in a timely manner. Something was bound to go wrong. I got it scanned a week or so later. Yes, procrastination won out again. Then, a couple of days after that, I dropped my laptop. Wait, did I say something had to go wrong?

Screwed the screen right up and still haven’t got it fixed. Thankfully Julie had a monitor hanging around that I was able to connect to the laptop so I could complete the work in lightroom. It looks like I’m not going to be getting the screen fixed for another 2/3 weeks so that wonderful monitor will allow me to complete the entire thing. Laptops are great, until they go wrong. Apple laptops with ridiculously expensive parts are great too, but have a way of going very wrong, very quickly. Especially when you allow them to take a dive off the couch when you get up to make toast. Next time, I’m building a compact desktop machine instead.

So one week to go and thirty something pages to layout before wrapping it up all in a PDF file and submitting it. Need to come up with a name. Hell, need to come up with a format, an image order and just about everything else. It helps immensely that I completed my first book only a month or so before beginning this one. Otherwise I’d have been freaking out for the last week or so. Also helps greatly that there’s no printing involved in this one. Getting everything right and proofing for print was a big part of what I did last time around. Time consuming. I may well print this time too, but at least it’s not a requirement of sofobomo itself.

Last but not least, I’m happy with the images. I left that part out didn’t I? With all the fecking around, dev’ing, scanning, processing and whatnot, it helps to be actually pleased with what you got out of the camera. I can see how I’ll do a few things differently next time around (I didn’t just say that, did I?) but overall and with now a bit less than one week to go, I’m ready for the finish. If that’ll still be the case in five or six days time remains to be seen however.