Progress on the book has ground to a halt, primarily because the places that have the aircraft seem to think the publishers and myself will make a fortune out of my ramblings and photos, so want to charge for image of their museum exhibits. Most places have been reasonable in what they want and I think I’ve shelled out £100 in donations so far, whilst other museums are just happy to have their exhibits in print and in the hope it stimulates visitors; I thank them profusely for their generosity and understanding.
After the initial per hour charges they wanted, until they discovered there wasn’t enough space to go back and reshoot anything anyway, the £50 to use my existing images that they finally came back with was considerably more reasonable. Except now they’re arguing the toss about “oh it’s and ebook as well and it’s worldwide rights, blah, blah”. So let’s see, it’s English only, which narrows your market somewhat. Any prospective visitor can’t currently get into where I’ve been, anymore than I can get back to shoot more images, whilst the main museum is also in a state of reorganisation and a few exhibits are actually missing, because its them cluttering up the reserve store! Any potential overseas visitor stimulated to want to see in the metal what’s in the book, will already have shelled out a good few $ be they US, Canadian, Australian or NZ, (considerably more $$$ for the latter two) so they’re not going to come if they can’t see everything (it was hard enough to get into the reserve collection anyway!). The museum’s also been told the initial “print run” is 750 copies (hell, I’d be impressed if it sold 75!), but now it’s “do we have to relicense if it goes to a second pressing?”. I give in.
Not content with one lot being a pain, we’re now embroiled in a similar debate with “my lot” if you get what I mean. Yes, I do have an awful lot of your exhibits featured and yes, one would have been on the cover of Vol.2 probably and I’d be quite happy top pay a reasonable donation for these images, but £296 just for the cover image alone…really? So if they want to charge what it looks like the do from the list they sent, then that’s it, there will be no book! Or rather their will, but the only copy will be mine as I’ll get one printed just for me, if only to show “here’s what it could have looked like”. Now I know why people write fiction, because they don’t have to deal with reality!
As to the “new” 35mm film camera I decide to buy, seeing as most other major brands have passed through my hands at one time or another (Fuji, Olympus, Canon, Pentax, Yashica yes, I’ve had a few film cameras over the years) and as this is the cheap, unloved end of their manual focus range, but still accepts the same lenses, I thought it was about time I used one. Not finished the roll of B&W film I loaded it with yet, but it’s surprisingly nice to go back to manual focus, aperture control around the lens and a swinging needle meter.
