Canadian photographer Pat Morrow has travelled the globe in pursuit of adventure over the past 40 years. Along the way, he:
- became the 132nd person to summit Mount Everest,
- set the standard for climbing the highest mountain on each continent (AKA The Seven Summits) and,
- won more than a dozen national awards for his photos and videography.
Frank and Pat taking a break from photo editing. 2012.
Recently, Pat launched a new adventure by collaborating on a stunning iBook about Mount Everest with fellow mountaineer Sharon Wood and me. (I’ve been a friend of Pat’s since our earliest magazine days when I was at Canadian Geographic and he was a rookie freelance photographer.)
The result — Everest: High Expectations — is a beautiful iBook especially produced for Apple’s iPad. It’s loaded with 145 photographs as well as a half dozen video and audio clips. And also 50,000 words.
Here are 8 reasons why we embraced the concept of the new “coffee tablet” book.
- The iPad’s Hi-Def retina display gives photographs an almost 3-D quality — without having to don those goofy glasses.
- When it comes to reproduction quality, INPUT = OUTPUT. There are no printing presses getting between the photographer’s vision and the reader.
- There is no gutter – the curse of a printed book’s double page spread – ruining the look of a big photograph.
- Every photograph can be expanded to the full size of the screen’s 1024 x 768 pixels. (That’s 9.7 inches diagonal.)
- Slideshows allow visual stories to be told next to text – photos can be viewed full-screen in sequence. After the reader has viewed them, they shrink back into place next to the text.
- The slideshow widget means there are no limits to the number of photographs that can be published in a book. You’re no longer limited to just one picture per page.
- The book is available around the world — in all 50 international iTunes stores.
- The software used to create Everest: High Expectations doesn’t require programming experience. The iBookAuthor software can be readily learned by anyone with basic digital book production skills. And it’s free (although you can only sell the end result via iTunes).
This post is meant to share my excitement about the possibilities that Apple’s iPad and its iBooksAuthor software presents for publishers and photographers. I don’t have any affiliation with Apple but do believe that the iBook format can revitalize the business of producing illustrated non-fiction books.
I hope that more photographers and their publishers will climb on board the iBook train.
I’d like a virtual sip of one of those beers! I agree with your comments and commend you both on “breaking ground” in this new and exciting genre in publishing. I find myself “re-thinking” my own publishing ambitions as a result.
Keep on keeping on!!! Next book please! Rob Torkildson
Thanks Rob. The beer was cold, the weather was warm, and the pictures were great.