Woah! It’s crazy that this is true, but this is true… I have been so consumed with this intense & beautiful adoption, this intense & beautiful election, and my intense & beautiful client work catch up, that something huge happened this week…and I kinda missed it: My book released!!! WOW!!! The official book release date was November 1st, 2008, and it is apparently in bookstores (not that I’m there to see it) throughout the country – and in bookstores around the world, too (is that right, Amherst??), although I haven’t seen one in the farmacia in Cuenca, yet, where I have seen four or five other books 😉 It is also widely available online at Amazon.com, at BarnesandNoble.com and at Borders.com, as well as other sites. I know this because I received the following note from my publisher – and, even better, I’ve received a few messages from friends and fellow photographers saying they already got the book. So, that means that they have seen the book before I have. I actually hope that ends up being true time and again, with a number of people 🙂 The official announcement from Amherst Media:
What I am most excited about, though, is a decision I made a while ago that seems remarkably perfect now, especially given my current life experience. I am donating 100% of all author proceeds to two phenomenal organizations that do so much for children in America and throughout the world. The first is Worldwide Orphans Foundation
and the second is Save The Children
It is particularly appealing to donate proceeds to these two organizations, specifically, because the one does so much for children who have already been orphaned (or, as they say: “what every child ought to know: what love is. what health is. what childhood is.”) and the other works towards assisting families in poverty, and in peril, so as to to enable them to stay healthy – and to stay together. These two organizations also both do a great deal of work in Ecuador and Ethiopia, two countries that are dear to my heart simply because they are where two of my children were born, countries where they were able to live and be cared for … at least until we had the great fortune of finding each other 🙂 ___ One other significantly beautiful thing. I received an unsolicited offer from the lab we use, a company that has sponsored my speaking engagements and has become a good friend to the studio, Buckeye Color Lab. Steve Troup, the President of Buckeye Color Lab, offered to match donations to these amazing causes, and up to quite a generous amount, I might add. What a thoughtful gesture from a lab that is so enjoyable to work with and who does such a good job for us anyway 🙂
And, hey, amazing clients! Pretty much every image in the book was from a portrait session, and the book includes page after page after page of beautiful children. I don’t know how it’s possible that my clients never seem to bring me anything but beautiful children, but the proof is right there, on all those pages. How kind of you all to sign model releases, even when I could not say which images would make the final cut, least of all which images would make it to the front and back of the book. Odd how okay I was giving up that much creative control, but I figure that the publisher has been at this longer than I have. Lastly, if you do get the book and don’t think it’s horrible (It’s not, I promise!! Over a year’s worth of work and a lot of sincere effort to genuinely share the photography love!), please write a review, on Amazon.com, at least. And, um, preferably not a terrible one 😉
