Nov 27, 2008
A Message for Obama - the book
I don’t often write about work-related stuff here (keep meaning to, just no time), but given that I’m at home with a stinking cold (no voice and you really don’t want to know what’s pouring out of my face…I barely want to know myself), and I’m particularly proud of this project, I’ll make a happy exception.
Since Obama’s historic election win, a few weeks ago, I’ve been quite heavily involved with the Message for Obama group on Flickr, which started out with a few snaps from my iphone (like the one above), taken around the Guardian offices, and snowballed in members and submissions over the following days and weeks. In fact, contributions are still rolling in, and the group continues to grow.
If you’ve got five minutes to spare, I heartily recommend having a flick through the slideshow of images in the pool. Fascinating viewing.
It’s three weeks exactly since the group was created, and I’m chuffed to say that there’s now an accompanying book, containing some of the most striking, thought-provoking, funny and interesting images and messages from the Flickr pool (with full permission from the contributors), as well as exclusive images commissioned from Guardian photographers around the world, capturing the global reaction to the election result.
The images selected for the book are representative of a wide variety of political views, cultural perspectives, positive and negative views as well as photographic styles. It’s absolutely not a giant backslapping happyfest, though it does in aggregate capture the interesting mixture of hopes and fears, joy and disappointment, expectation and relief which were all being exhibited during the time after the election result.
So the last few weeks have, for me, been full of corresponding with Flickr users and publishers, keeping permissions records, laying the book out gradually using Blurb’s BookSmart software, keeping an eye on the group and weeding out the occasional flurry of images of kittens, weird folk-art, gimps with their cocks out, rippling soft-focus flags etc.
(Aside: Seriously - you’d think the clue to the group’s criteria would be in the name of the group: is it a Message? Is it for Obama? Is it something that you’d like to address directly to him? No, it’s a picture of a rabbit. While I realise that may well be your personal tribute to the president-elect, in furry/naked/flag-waving/bad-photoshop form, unless you actually make part of it a message (title/description if nothing else) then it’s not a message for Obama, it’s a picture. Or people failing to grasp the rather simple point that a picture of the words “Obama is Rubbish” or similar is actually a message ABOUT Obama, which still isn’t a message FOR Obama, and that removing it from the pool has absolutely nothing to do with censorship (you could’ve happily put a message in which says “Dear Obama, I think you’re rubbish!”) and everything to do with our rather literal interpretation of the format. Sheesh.)
Ahem.
Anyway, after many late nights and computer fails and transatlantic phonecalls, the book is now available to buy from Blurb and I think looks rather spiffy, actually.
There’s much more background about how the project came about and my involvement in it in this interview I did with the lovely Mr Hg, for instance:
What has been the most striking aspect of this project for you personally?
The amazing creativity and thoughtfulness of contributions to the pool has been incredibly inspiring. It would have been easy to have ended up with a thousand webcam pictures of people with their thumbs up saying “nice one!” but actually, people have found interesting ways - and words - to express their hopes and fears about an Obama presidency.
Plus there’s quite a bit more detail in the comments of this article on the Guardian site (in which I attempt to put right some misconceptions about the project from people determined to believe the worst. Sigh. See that windmill? Excuse me while I wander towards it…)
All the Guardian’s profits from the same of the book will go to the Katine development project, which is a very worthy cause. So if you’re wondering what to get for the democrat/republican/interested outside observer/Palin impersonator in your life, look no further…
A couple of taster screenshots after the jump.
Sorry to hear you have a cold. Keep up the good writing, you always gets me thinking.
Oh, I had no idea that Guardian blog post had comments. I guess I looked at the bottom of the page, where they would be on most personal blogs like yours & mine. When I didn’t see them, I assumed it was a closed post.
Jesus, what a load of hot air. I wonder how many of those people who expressed their vociferous and repeated concerns had actually contributed to the Flickr group in the first place. Few, I suspect.
For the record (I know you know some of this already, Meg), I’ve had my work plagiarised and ripped off by numerous supposedly “respectable” organisations in the past (a certain Scottish newspaper and a certain Irish broadcaster spring to mind). I take a fairly hard-line attitude towards cynical re-use of my creative efforts. I’ve also refused people who’ve asked nicely, because I checked out who they were and didn’t find it particularly inspiring.
In this case, I found the original idea very interesting and its progression into a discernible phenomenon even more so. Yes, I paid attention because you sent me the Flickr group invitation and yes, I might well have ignored it if it had come from a complete stranger. But that’s called friendship and networking and is entirely the point. Initially, I had no idea that The Guardian was involved, other than the fact that some of your images were clearly of your colleagues. I contributed for the same reason that I contributed to your mince pie Flickr group (sort-of).
When I got the “official” request from The Guardian, yes, a certain part of me was flattered. It’s “my” paper, after all. But really, my motivation (as explained in my own post on this) was that I’m trying to do more tangible stuff with my creativity at the moment and being involved in a book suits that aspiration perfectly. And the charitable aspect of it is perfect. I would probably have refused involvement in a for-profit book.
I know absolutely nothing about Katine and to be frank haven’t really read up on the project, but if a throwaway picture of mine that took about ten minutes to produce can help in some small way with some kid in a village in Africa getting clean drinking water, it would be rather churlish to refuse.
People will always bitch and I too can be as sceptical as the next man (even more so, in many cases). However, as a contributor to the project I can state unequivocally that I was happy to be involved and that The Guardian’s handling of it seems to be pretty much exemplary. That’s not arse-licking, that’s credit where credit’s due.
What a fantastic project, I can see why you’re so proud of it! It’s such a shame when you encounter this sort of reaction online but it seems to be par for the course these days..
Congratulations on a good idea that became an amazing project, I hope the book does well, I’ll definitely be buying a copy.
Hope you recover from your lurgee soon!
A few of those comments on the Guardian article whiff of sour grapes which is a real shame. The Flickr pool was another great idea which engaged a huge audience and that’s never a bad thing.
Actually, anonymous, it’s not my problem because it’s not a picute of me, though I did take it.
Your problems, however, are being rude to strangers and too cowardly to reveal your identity.
It’s easy to be snarky when you’re hiding. Would you be that personal and cheeky if you met the subject of that photograph in person?
[...] time. I mentioned it here and, to be honest, thought nothing of it until I received an email from Meg who was heading up the project to compile some of the photos into a book (modesty prevents me from suggesting the chose the best photos), who asked if I’d mind if [...]