Stockland Martel

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At her blog last week, HMAb, Heather Morton interviewed fashion photographer Evaan Kheraj about his decision to produce multiple copies of his portfolio so that he can give, rather than lend, his book to potential clients and creatives. As Heather notes, it sounds pretty expensive. But Evaan, who collaborates with his wife, fashion stylist Luisa Rino, has his reasons.

“The idea with these books is to be more targeted,” he tells Heather. “Rather than do a mass mail-out, that really could cost the same, [we decided to] just focus on specific clients, art directors, magazines, etc. The goal is to build a relationship and understanding of what we have to offer. Because we like to take a cinematic or story-like approach to the work, it’s difficult to isolate one photo for a mail-out so the book just makes more sense.”

It would be interesting to know what it costs Evaan and Luisa to print each book and what the quality of the books is. How many pages does it have, and how big is their mailing list? Also, I wonder if they use a self-publishing site.

I’m curious about all of this for two reasons. One is that last week I saw Lauren Greenfield’s new portfolio, and it’s a work of art. Beautiful printing, luxurious paper stock, handsome binding, and hefty. It’s a serious book befitting a photographer whose work is serious and intelligent.

The other reason I’m curious about Evaan’s leave-behind approach is that I  just tried an experiment with Blurb.com, creating a special print edition of this blog featuring a selection of stories from the past four months. It’s a 38-page softcover affair that I “designed” (“cobbled together” might be a more accurate description) using Blurb’s BookSmart software. I treated it like a magazine, with a cover displaying a single large image and using “StocklandMartelBlog.com” as the title. I wrote coverlines for it and everything.

If it turns out all right—I ordered a single copy, which should be arriving in a week—I’d like to have free copies on hand at PhotoPLus Expo next month. At the very least, it will be a standalone product that can be enjoyed (I hope) in its own right. Ideally, though, it will drive traffic to the blog and communicate the message that while this blog is meant to promote Stockland Martel’s photographers, it’s also a source of industry news and commentary. I’ll let you know how it goes.

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