Fine Press Book Association

I am writing this at the invitation of Paul Razzell who contacted me after seeing some of my photos of books on my Philobiblon Flickr gallery. Paul very generously said that he liked many of my photos and asked if I might be able to share any tips I might have about how to take pictures of books. I am very happy to do so.

I should begin by saying that I am no professional photographer and not even a very serious amateur. I don’t have any fancy or expensive equipment and what I do know has been picked up by trial and error. My equipment comprises a cheap compact digital camera with a built in zoom and a small angle lamp. No fancy lenses or flashes.

I really have only one great insight about how to take pictures of books and it is about as obvious as it could be: light! It’s all in the lighting. Photos taken in natural light or with a flash look awful. By contrast photos taken away from natural light, with the lighting provided by a small lamp, seem to work a lot better. Compare, for instance, photos 1 and 2.

Now, Photo 2 is not perfect, and not particularly in focus, but the change in lighting makes the whole thing much warmer. Compare again Photos 3 and 4, and notice how in Photo 4 you get a much better sense of the texture of the paper and the type.

Finally, compare Photos 5 and 6. See how the texture and detail in Photo 6 are more dramatic and clear?

Of these, Photo 5 seems really lifeless, while Photo 6 is better, though far from perfect (and I’ve toned down some glare using iPhoto).

While it may seem best to show viewers the complete spread each time, sometimes angled shots can work better, especially if you experiment with the angle of the light source as well. Compare Photos 7 and 8.

Although it is good to give viewers a shot of the whole thing, details can often bring the book to life. Consider Photo 9, in which you get a nice sense for the texture of the paper and the type.

In order to get the lighting right to bring out the texture of the paper here I simply laid the lamp on the desk so that the light went horizontally across the book, as you can see in Photo 10.

You can see how Photo 10 could easily be cropped to produce an image like Photo 9, and I crop pretty much every photo I take in order to remove excess background and the like. For another close up bringing out texture see Photo 11, again with the lamp simply laid on the table.

I find that experimenting with angles often produces the most interesting results. Out of the photos I took for this post my favourites are 12 and 13.

Let me end with a credit to the most important people of all, the fine printers who produced the book, in Photo 14.

There is a lot of trial and error in all this. Often I take the same shot two or three times before I get one I like. Often shots are a bit out of focus, especially the close-up shots; this in part reflects the very cheap camera I use! I do have a small tripod that I have experimented with, but on the whole I found it more trouble than it was worth. Overall I have found that only two things really make a difference: be prepared to experiment a little, and pay attention to the light.

—John Sellars

Note: John Sellars is  the author of The Art of Living, The Stoics on the Nature and Function of Philosophy, Stoicism, and editor of Julius Lipsius: On Constancy. He teaches Philosophy at the University of the West of England, is a member of Wolfson College, Oxford, and maintains a beguiling photo gallery of ancient philosophy books at Philobiblon on Flickr.