"WETPIXEL" Coffee Table Book???

Hello All,

As Eric noted things are moving ahead on this project. One thing we could use help with is finding a Reef orientated Non-Profit organization to donate any potential "profits" to.

1. Would like 3 organizations to choose from.

2. Would like to see groups that have "hands on projects" like placing mooring buoys, building artificial reefs, etc...

3. Would like to know the % of donations that actually go to projects.

4. The finalist could be put up for a vote by WP members.

We are looking for someone going past Googling and posting links. If we are going to give money to an organization lets make sure the money is being used effectively. First one to volunteer gets the joy of doing this.

Thanks,

Martin

I would be interested in seeing the money going towards Reef Check. They do some fantastic work all over the world and are an non-profit org as requested. They are mainly involved in monitoring and rehabilitation of reefs, training volunteers and education. I have no affliation with them - I'm just impressed by their work.

a bit late as usual, but I would certainly want one of the books.

I might be able to help out a bit as well by printing some (pre-)proofs of the book.

Being employed by a printer manufacturer I can quite easily get my hands on some printers like Indigo's, Designjets and such.

As a charity I would like to support Hepca.

I've been coming to the Red Sea for quite a few years now and with the boom in diving tourism worldwide, the Red Sea is affected quite badly.

Hepca is doing a lot of good work in the region.

Oh, and yes, I'm slightly biassed, due to it's proximity the Red Sea my favorite holliday hangout... B)

Pieter

I may be able to help quite a bit.

how i can helpI am a high school student meaning right now I have a whole lot of work, but starting in January I may be able to put a substantial amount of work into this (if i get into college early decision...)

I also plan to take a year off before college to work at a dive shop or something of the sort, so starting in May or so I could take on one of the more time-consuming editorial rolls if no one else stepped up.

I am the photo-editor of my school newspaper and yearbook and so I have Adobe In-Design on my computer and have a good amount of experience with it.

categories: I am thinking for the categories the best way to do it would be by location (Western Atlantic, Eastern Atlantic, Western Pacific, Eastern Pacific, Polar Regions, Lakes) or something like that.

non-profit org'sAs for the non-profits... I second Reef Check. the only problem here is it deals only with reefs, leaving out some other marine environments.

Another possibility is Sea Shepherd, a slightly more radical group http://www.seashepherd.org. I think this is the best choice as it is on a pretty global scale.

thirdly, I attended the Island School http://www.islandschool.org in the Bahamas last fall. In addition to educating the 40 students who attend the semester abroad twice a year and turning them into complete "reef huggers" they have been working with the Bahamian government and various NGO's to promote conservation and introduce solutions to overharvesting such as aquaculture and marine protected areas.

to go a different route with the money... One Percent for the Planet http://www.onepercentfortheplanet.org is, and i quote from their website, "1% For The Planet is an alliance of businesses committed to leveraging their resources to create a healthier planet. Members recognize their responsibility to and dependence on a healthy environment and donate at least 1% of their annual net revenues to environmental organizations worldwide. The alliance aims to prove that taking environmental responsibility is good for business." We could work something out with them

Just my two cents... id love to atleast contribute a picture, I think this is a pretty great idea.

Ok this is an "Unofficial Leak".

After some input from more experienced members it looks like the 1st effort will be a "Wetpixel Calendar"! This will be a lot easier to manage and organize. Once we have a handle on this it may be possible to do a full book.

Please note: the above is just my worthless musings and I make no claim to it being officially endorsed by Eric, or anyone formally tied to the Wetpixel site.

Sounds GREAT Martin,

We could always do it in the style of Lonely Planet calenders which have one large image and a number of small thumbnail 2"x3" pics interspersed with the days...

A calendar is ok but too bad, the book sounded just awsome. I could see it on the Today show "Underwater pics from some of the best amature and profesional photographers around the world" After all if you don't know about Wetpixel how serious can you be?" I think this could be a big seller. I also think that each picture should be a story teller unless a macro shot was really, really artistic. I am a big fan of Wide angle and like pictures that anyone can understand and recognize and of course behavior that is instructional. I bet everyone thinks a few of there pics should be in there I am no exception. To be successful the pics should have impact to people who can't even swim. This would make it succesful and also help the editing process. I bet a publishing Co. could get behind this but there would be no real charity benefit although if it was to get really big, even a small % to charity might be more than what could have been expected. The fact that the book would have many phtographers of all ages and mostly amatures putting in high quallity stuff is a big selling point. A must have book for everyone living on the water. Maybe it could be written up as an outline or proposal to a publisher of these kind of books, make it classy no ads. Info about wetpixel of course being the catalyst for the project, where, when and who shot what. The book can contain a link to the site that may somehow correspond to the book where more info on us the photographers can be found and then the ads and al that stuff can roll. Hey from the site we could sell screen saver slide shows, mugs with your favorit picture and whatever for charity programs etc. Sky is the limit!

Also... with so many people contributing..

1)thats a lot of sales just to friends, family, word of mouth

2)everyone could include a link to where to buy it on their sites (for those who have sites).

3)wetpixel is pretty well connected through its members in the photography and diving worlds and i am sure also in other senses.

also I don't think that it would be impossible to hire an editor and part of the profits would go towards baying him/her.

I agree... it could be a great success and the sky is the limit , but i guess starting out small is a better idea.

Just to recap a little I was thinking as a pitch to a major publisher who has done these books. They already have the inroads, experience, staff etc. on doing this. An outline of the project, should be far less work and maybe far more succes but with that would come far less control

Questions?

How many members are on this site, and any idea on how many photographs most large coffe table books have?

As far as the calendar goes I would guess far less pictures and a tough editing job.

I think I can say there will be a Wetpixel book.

As stated before a book is a huge project if all proceeds are going to a non-profit and people are just volunteering their time to get it done. I know nothing about the publishing world and how royalties, etc, are handled. Some Wetpixel members have expressed concern if individuals were getting “paid†to put this together. I have no idea on how you would handle any “profits†if or when costs to put it together and ship it were met. Remember the idea was to keep costs to a minimum so as many people could participate as possible.

I believe a calendar will give us an opportunity to define the process and give us a better idea of what we are getting into with a book. Please remember we all have full time jobs and I know my wife is already wondering about my obsession with this hobby.

It's a good idea.

I do design work for a client who's an underwater photographer so if I can help with anything then let me know. I use a printer in the UK, and while not the cheapest way of doing things, they do have one of the only presses in the country and for that matter world which produce true photographic prints on a traditional 4 colour press. They do this by using a new halftoning method which removes all 'dots' from the picture so you can take a lupe to the finished product and it's truely photographic.

It also means you don't have so many gamut issues as you doing with traditional presses which is important for u/w jobs due to the narrow gamuts often used i.e. lots of hues of blue etc...

My client produces a calendar each year which you can buy from his site if you want to see the results. The calendar has been used by Heidelberg who designed the new printing presses to promote their method so you might have already seen it.

The link is: Ocean Realm Images Calendar

or http://www.oceanrealmimages.com/calendar/calendarintro.htm

I'm happy to help if anyone's got any queries though.

Good idea and like Alex Mustard said, there are a lot of good pictures out there and it would be good to get them to a wide audience. Does need a good editor though to pull all the pictures together.

For the calendar, I find a theme pulls things together well...

Good luck!

NWDIVER - what happened here ????

I do not want to scoop Eric but things are in the works.

I don't get too much time to browse and add posts, so when I saw this one I was very impressed. This is a wicked idea. I have to agree with Dru on his earlier comment that members should pay a bit more for this so that something can begiven to help the environment we are all diving in so much, it seems we all love it, so let's help preserve & conserve it!

I personally have supported Coral Reef Alliance. These guys put together great workshops which help local operators, it certainly helped kickstart a much needed mooring buoy project here in Bali. Plus I've met and worked with a few of their reps and have spent some quality time diving with one of the directors and find them all to be great people who are really out there to preserve & conserve. Another organisation I am looking into working with right now is ReefCheck. If anyone has more input on ReefCheck please mail me personally on this!

Who finally made it into the book and what was the criteria?

Well, I think this is a time issue. I believe Eric has a ton of great shots from the Wetpixel/DivePhotoGuide contest from last yr that he wanted to use. At this point I think he is really, really busy. I would be happy to sort them and get them in order if he could get them to me (are you out there Eric?). So that is where it stands to date.

got it. So, Martin, you in it?