I’m quite fortunate to be married to an excellent photographer. When I wrote my first book, I hadn’t even considered what to do about the cover. Panic consumed me until I spent time searching through Max’s photography site. Surely I would be able to find inspiration there.
And I did. Twenty years of practical graphic design work from owning a quick printing shop and a friend whose artistic talent is extraordinary, gave me the courage to put a few ideas together and then hone those down to the cover for All Roads Lead Home.
My insistence on patterns (I might have one or two OCD tendencies – not enough to worry me, but patterns and I have a close relationship), gave me the foundation for the rest of the Bellingwood series. The beauty of this is that I can use more and more of Max’s glorious photography as I stay within the overall scheme we created for the covers.
I finally asked him to create a gallery on his zenfolio site for the original prints that were used as the basis for the book covers. You will see that in some cases, I found the cover in the midst of a larger image, while other photographs were shot specifically for the size of the cover. Whichever way we found the image, they seem to be perfect.
Take a look at the Bellingwood Covers gallery and then take some time to look through the rest of his photography. He finds beauty in the most interesting things and is able to capture it and then render it for others to enjoy.
