PURELY FOR PLEASURE: okay, a few lessons, too

As I've surely mentioned earlier on this blog, I'm a great fan of illustrated books, which are becoming ever more inventive and affordable thanks to the wonders of digital printing. I received James Balog's Extreme Ice Now: A Progress Report (National Geographic, 2009) as a gift last Friday, and I've been marveling over it ever since.
Because printed books are usually the collaborative effort of a team of people who never meet one another, their different elements (text, size, shape, graphics, font, and more) don't always work perfectly together. This book is one of the exceptions. From its spare slipcase to its square shape, from its striking use of typography to its rich essays and its haunting photographs, this is one of those books which is impeccable in every single regard. More than impeccable, in fact: impressive, memorable, haunting, and full of integrity. Integrity in the original and best sense of the word, that is, meaning not just honesty, but rather wholeness and internal consistency.

I first saw the work of the book's author, James Balog, in one of his early books of animal photography. Though their underlying themes are similar, his images are created differently from one book to the next, with each new form or process designed specifically for its subject. Survivors depicts animals using some of the conventions of commercial photography; the large composite images in Tree are built from hundreds of smaller shots. The images in Extreme Ice Now are made in even more complex ways, requiring a variety of special cameras to be left in a variety of very cold places for considerable lengths of time. (That's a very simplified version of the process, which is far better explained in the book and the Extreme Ice Survey website; my apologies for this rinky-dink description.) I actually learned of the Extreme Ice Survey on the PBS series Nova, which aired a documentary

There's an obvious technical element to this work, and an obvious scientific point. Yet the images themselves are not clinical in any way; instead, they are gorgeous and sad, evocative and haunting. Balog's essays are interesting and beautifully written, but it is these astonishing images that makes the book so powerful. The ice in them is like a living creature. These photographs take a subject that is literally and figuratively removed from our ordinary lives, literally and figuratively cold, and allow it to speak warmly to our hearts, the place where all true change starts.

I've been enjoying this book as a lay person, not as a professional in the writing and publishing field. Yet it does remind me of two precepts all of us writers would be wise to follow. The first and most important: always, always, always be sure to find the emotional heart of your topic, whether your'e writing about murder mysteries or the building of outdoor decks. Second: if you write only about that which you care passionately about, your work (like James Balog's) will feel coherent even if your subjects or forms differ, and it will find others who care passionately about it, too.

You can see selected images from James Balog's portfolio by clicking here. The Extreme Ice Survey website offers a wealth of information and images. Finally, many thanks to the senior James Balog for sending me the book: a kind and generous gift to ths appreciative "starving artist."

In our word of digital publishing, it's sometimes heartening for a writer to remember that there are folks out there who revere books as physical objects and adore the slow and finicky hand-work of making them.

In that vein, click on the link here and spend a few moments watching this little documentary (a documentaryette, we might say if this was 1950) about letterpress printing, brought to you courtesy of my friend and colleague cj Madigan's book thinking blog and, before that, of YouTube. I've given you the link via cj's blog both because her thoughts on images, book design, and information management are always interesting, and also because her post offers a handful of little videos on related processes and crafts.

The letterpress one is my favorite: wry, amusingly voiced, filled with lovely images, and even explaining the source of the curious phrase "out of sorts." Enjoy.