***Click the photo below to purchase the book!***
***Click the photo above to purchase the book!***
When I purchased my first “real” camera as an active duty Marine, I never in my wildest dreams would have imagined I’d be publishing an ACTUAL photo book. Putting together a collection of my military images has always been a dream after serving my time in the Marine Corps; an homage of service to my country and a way to honor the hardships and sacrifices made by my fellow Marines and Sailors. But who knew how actually difficult it would be to put together a good-looking book, start to finish?
My first attempt was done on Blurb, a self-publishing platform for print and e-books. After a quick assembly and test print, all I can say is WOW, imagining an end product and executing are entirely different things. It felt impersonal, the print quality was lackluster, and it wasn’t something that I was proud to put out in the world. Luckily, my partner is a talented writer who also happens to have started her own book publishing company, what a match made in heaven!
Over the span of a few months, we toiled over the details. Images were laid out and re-ordered until it flowed just right, captions were edited and changed to give important insight to the viewer, a beautiful cover was designed(by yours truly!) and all of the technical mumbo-jumbo was covered like ISBN’s, copyright, and barcodes.
In addition, a portion of the proceeds will go to The Wingman Foundation, an all-volunteer, veteran-founded non-profit organization dedicated to providing immediate post-mishap support for the Navy and Marine Corps Aviation community and their families. The final product BLEW away my initial, naive expectations. Putting so much time and energy into this book has made me so proud and excited to put my art out into the world. I hope you will find as much joy and pleasure in viewing these images as I had putting them together for you.
