SomosTerra

I think I may be disproportionately chuffed abut this one.

I've blipped in the past about the use of my photos in print. I was fairly chuffed then, given my 'enthusiastic amateur' photographer status.

Well, it's kicked up a notch this time.

I was contacted a while ago from a lovely lady called Kathryn from Brazil, who told me she was making a book, containing nature pictures, for a book to accompany an exhibition called Somos Terra, which means "We are life".

She wanted to use a close crop of one of my owl pictures from Morgue File. I duly obliged and there ensued a frantic dialogue requesting various different versions ahead of their print deadline. Of course the simple promise of being in print, with a credit and a free copy of the finished product was enough for me to jump through hoops (including editing at 1:30am to help out - well, they are on a different time-zone)

Well, the book arrived today. Little did I know it was going to be such a high-quality publication. It's 150-odd, glossy, 21x22cm photo-quality pages, in Portuguese of course. The cover and my picture are shown above. The text on my picture says "We want only our right to life". You can read a bit about the exhibition here.

So what I expected to be a pamphlet of sorts, being chased up by an over-enthusiastic admin person, turned out to be a proper publication with a significant print-run, supporting a significant event that was funded by the Brazilian Ministry of Culture.

My picture is in the section entitled "A teia da vida", which means 'The web of life". It's among the pictures of extreme close-ups of creatures' eyes. I have to admit, the quality of mine isn't as good as I'd have liked, but then I never expected to require quite as close a crop, and at such a size (42x22cm) too. But it's standing proud alongside some really top-notch shots from proper 'togs and from stock like National Geographic, NASA and Corbis.

Chuffed?
Aye.