Koshirae Project

[Darcy]

The books have a few problems. The first being that doing Bizen is easier because there are a lot of good Bizen works out there and nobody can expect you to make a comprehensive Bizen book because there are too many good Bizen smiths and many are rare.

 

Soshu, it isn't possible to publish unless you have the full mainline covered. Unless someone wants to buy an Awataguchi Kunitsuna and a Shintogo Kunihiro and send them to me for photography, I have a bit of a problem.

 

The other thing is that the first book never cleared expenses. I traveled a lot to do the photography, I did 80% of the writing, and all of the layout and editing and test printing. I had to go through 27 revisions of the book once it was done, changing all the photos each time (I forget how many are in the book but 30 photos * 27 revisions = 810 photo edits) in order to get something that would render on the Xerox printer reasonably. Print is very different from publishing graphics on the web, the colors are a drastically reduced gamut which means what you see in a book is never how it looks in real life or how a high end digital camera will photograph it. You lose saturation and contrast, dynamic range goes out the window. So as much prepress testing as I could do it would always come out below standards and I'd have to do it again. Each time I'd have to buy my own book from Lulu to see how it would come out. I'd only have to pay cost of materials but I spent roughly $800 buying my own book until it looked right. Or as good as I could get it. Anyway to do all of that, lay out photos and make the book look sophisticated was hobby time and took about 8 months of work with all the photography and editing. I spent a lot of money on translations as well.

 

If you're just writing and spell checking and handing in a .doc for printing or grabbing oshigata and throwing it in there it's a lot less work but I didn't want to do a book like that. I wanted a study guide of sorts. And if you can translate correctly and at a good pace it's a really good skill for making a book like this, but I don't have that skill. I can read somewhat, but not fluently.

 

So what it means to finish is to devote about 8 months to photo editing, layout, and writing. Some of this is saved as some of the swords hit my site and I can use research and edited photos from them. Some is saved because I can use the work done for laying out the first book and hopefully reduce the number of test prints. Camera tech and my own skills and methods have improved considerably since the first book so hopefully the photos in new books will show that too. 

 

It does though mean an 8 month vacation from working and the time I put into the books will probably never come back, and at the moment I can't take the 8 month vacation. I am working on software and swords 7 days a week and put too much on my plate to the detriment of my health. I take "breaks" from this from time to time and in those "breaks" I write here or in emails about swords. When that started generating the fights especially with one person in particular who's hobby it is to get in fights the break time ate into work time considerably and there was no return from having to constantly defend against an agenda to nitpick and shoot down at all costs instead of participate in a group discussion. That had me eventually quit this site and I am now experimenting with some limited participation again. 

 

But it all ultimately comes down to time. Doing the book was a donation. It returns to me about $40.00 per month on an ongoing basis. I can't remember the expenses now as it was so long ago but before camera gear, it was over $15,000. So it will be about 20 years to break even on expenses and at that point the 8 months of labor will start paying off. I did three separate trips for photographing collections and once crossing the border they accused me of "going to set up a photo booth to charge people to take pictures and/or attempting to sell books in the USA" and to not come back without a work visa. That incurred a $1,500 legal fee. The only sword group who would offer assistance when I asked (I wanted an invitation letter explaining what I was doing with this photo gear and though I was writing a book I was not carrying around copies to sell to people) was the New York group associated with the NTHK and in particular John Prough. He and this group had the balls to support me when I needed help, and I will repeat it, they had the balls to do so, when others declined. 

 

Every time I think about continuing the series I think about the time investment, the sales numbers, the border issues (I really need to go in again and shoot for instance a Masamune at the Truman library which I did receive permission to do), and that things are even more screwed up now crossing borders than ever. Every time I get hopeful about it I think, do I have time to take an 8 month vacation and dump a lot of money at this again for something that will return $40.00 per month in perpetuity? And ultimately the answer has continued to be, not yet. I keep thinking soon though.

 

But soon is  thing that starts out being measured in days and hours when you're young and as you get older stretches into weeks and then years. 

 

The only good part is that as it slides, I know more and can refer more to my own experience. I did 80% of the writing in the last book and it was a lot more of a strain as I had to refer and defer to a lot that I now have internalized. Bob had and still has a great wealth of knowledge accumulated from a depth of experience and in his parts he could tap into that, where I had to hit books and research. Now I am a few more steps down that path. When I'm in my 70s I hope I can talk about swords the way he can.

[SAS]

Darcy, understood. Thank you for sharing what you are able.

[rkg]

Darcy,

 

If you actually wanted to break even on all this imaging stuff, you need to be shooting something (well, most anything) else..... Say, potatoes:

 

http://www.smh.com.au/entertainment/art-and-design/kevin-abosch-sells-photograph-of-potato-for-15-million-20160125-gmd6s4.html

 

 

:-) :-)

 

rkg

(Richard George)