Well, I've been busy the past few months and have been bad about posting, so I'm catching things up to get back on my regular schedule of semi-monthly posts about my journey into the freelance world.
I've been buried in more office work than travel, and I completed two books calendars during this past four months. I'll schedule a little more carefully next year--trust me on this point.
The first is How to Build a Dream Garage (MBI, June 2008) which came about because I built the garage office I'm sitting in this morning back in 2004. When I do a project of just about any kind, I like to read about it (surprise, surprise), and I couldn't find a book that outlined the practical challenges you face when contracting and building a garage. I felt a book that did that would be worthwhile, and the guys at MBI agreed, so this book resulted. One of the best features came naturally--I'm a cheapskate, and the book has lots of tips and step-by-step projects readers can do to save some dough. Editor Dennis Pernu, graphic designer Anne Ulku, and layout wizard Chris Fayers did a great job making the book read well and look great. Watch for it in June.
The second is a little photographic brick, Farm Tractor Classics (MBI, September 2008), which is a new book package for MBI that is a small trim-size 400-page package that is a great showcase for the photography in the book (my own as well as others). Editor and ex-work-wife Leah Noel did a nice job with the editing, and I'll be seeing the layout for that in the next few weeks. The best part of that process was digging into history, and trying to work just a few tidbits of agricultural history into a book for farm tractor fans.
The calendars are Vintage Farm Tractors 2009 and Farmall Tractors 2009. Photographing these calendars is always a challenge that I enjoy, and this year's batch was no exception. Highlights include the Lyle Johnson night shoot mentioned previously in my blog; another evening shoot with Ranier's John Coffee in which we lit his Cub with table lamps; Joe Hickman's photogenic barn cat which couldn't seem to stay out of a shoot in southern Minnesota (and yes, made the calendar); discovering that Dave Preuhs' love of rare early 1900s Hart-Parrs accidentally set up he and his wife with a retirement fund; and photographing the collection of Dave Lulich, the world's highest-energy shop teacher (he does a half-dozen restorations a year in his "spare" time). I also learned about the game of buying old iron overseas from Mike Schmudlach and spent an early morning laughing and swapping stories about life, politics, and our mutual friend Roger Welsch with outgoing businessman turned part-time farmer Verne Houlobek.
Some days, I'm amazed I actually get paid to do this job.
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3 comments:
Don't knock the pay or someone might want to have you do it for free.....
You're a hard working man, Klancher, and I admire that. I've been trying to hit the 12-hour-day scene lately and while it's exhausting, it seems to make more happen in the world and that's what it's all about.
When I think about what it takes to get ahead in the world a Bernard Shaw quote comes to mind.
"When I was young I observed that nine out ten things I did were failures, so I worked ten times as hard."
Shaw didn't hit his stride till his 40s and he wrote Geneva at 90. We should be so lucky in turning hard work to success.
You're amazing, seriously! Good work and looking forward to seeing the end result.
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