Today, Wednesday 18th March 2015, we went over to Loop Printers in Sheffield to supervise the start of the print run for my 2 new landscape photography books. This time we are having 2 books printed at the same time as I have so many images not yet published in any of my books.

Snow Light is snowscapes from around the world and includes 121 images as well as 3 articles. Land Light is landscapes around the world that are not snowy and includes 119 images and 1 article giving away all of my secrets!

Jan took some video segments on her Nikon D90 which I edited in iMovie, to be included on YouTube and in this blog post. The movie runs for a bit under 1.5 minutes but is over 100Mb in size before YouTube converts it. Our broadband is too slow to cope so I have to send it to Andy, our graphic designer and web man, to convert and upload; one of the limitations of living in a National Park! The video covers the process from loading the paper for the covers, running the press, checking for quality and changing the printing plates.

The printing should be finished in a day. Covers need to be glossed and sealed and then it all has to be sent to the binders to be finished off.

We are waiting to hear when the finished books will be delivered but expect to have all 3000 copies of the books before Easter. Both are the same format as my previous books with 80 pages in each, mostly images.

Here are some still photos and the edited video of Jan’s

The stack of paper for printing the covers loaded into the printing machine

Covers for both books being printed together. This is the stack building up at the end of the press.

Dave checking the first prints for quality, mainly density and contrast as well as dust

The completed stack of printed covers being removed from the press, still to be printed on the reverse, glazed and sealed

Trevor changing printing plates, taking out the one used for the covers and replacing with the bluey coloured new one (leaning against the machine) for the Snow Light intro pages

The Loop Printers logos on the wall of the building. This makes 4 books that they have printed for us.

So far they have done a very good job!