A Masterpiece of Photography and Book Design

Over the 40 plus episodes of On My Bookshelf that I’ve made, I’ve featured books covering all sorts of genres and styles of photography. For the most part, they all have something that I like and that’s great photographs. However, every now and again I buy a book that I love. So, what separates a book with great photographs from a book that I love? Presentation!

How the photographs are printed, sequenced, and bound in a book can make all the difference on how even great photographs are experienced. If you want to look at a photographers great photographs you can do it on their website, but when you buy their book that experience should be a vastly superior.

Two of my favourite books, Beara and Kingdom (both my Norman McCloskey) are a great example of how to turn a collection of great photographs into a viewing experience to be savoured.

Another photographer that seems to be mastering this art is Alex Nail. His previous title, Northwest, was fantastic. It turned out to be one of my favourite landscape photography books.

When Alex announced pre-orders for his latest book, The Great Wilderness, I couldn’t give him my money fast enough. Alex had been hinting at the design choices he had been making for this book and it sounded like his attention to detail was going to be like no other book I would have on my bookshelf.

Now that I have the book, did Alex manage to deliver on both the photographs and the book design? Let’s find out!

You can pick up a copy of The Great Wilderness directly from Alex at https://www.alexnail.com/great-wilderness-book/