In 2017, I had the privilege of being selected to photograph the monthly progress of the exterior refurbishment of Flinders Street Station, Melbourne. This followed later in the year with a similar assignment to record the transformation of the State Library Victoria. These projects resulted in extensive libraries of unique photographs.
The story starts the previous year in 2016 when I was setting out to forge a career as an architectural photographer. I offered to take a series of photographs of the exterior of Flinders Stret Station for Built, one of the contractors submitting tenders for the refurbishment works. The only reward for me at that stage was a small library of photographs of the building.
On the basis of the quality of my work that contributed to Built being awarded the contract, I received a phone call the following year inviting me to submit a proposal for the progress photography. This was accepted and I spent the next 18 months clambering about the scaffolding taking monthly photographs.
In November of 2018 I was invited by Built to take the monthly progress photographs of the transformation works to the State Library Victoria building. This resulted in monthly visits during the next twelve months.
Since completing the projects, I have always intended to publish photobooks to tell the stories of these important milestones in the history of the buildings.
During 2019, I printed a few copies of a 100 page photobook of the Flinders Street Station project for my own use, with a couple of copies being gifted to the project personnel. There was interest at that stage of having this published, but a few insurmountable copyright issues effectively halted any further action.
During the past couple of years, I reflected on what to do with the book. I felt it was an important record of the history of the building and it needed to be in the public domain. So, I set out to edit the original book to remove all contentious copyright images. Not content with that, I decided to prepare a book about the work on the State Library Victoria project at the same time.
Contributing to this decision was identifying a local Australian printer that was able to print the books at a cost that would result in a reasonable retail price.
Having made the decision to self-publish, my next task was to set up a website to sell the books. With regard to decisions about this and the legal requirements of publishing, I have Jude Aquilina to thank. Jude leads the Goolwa Budding Writers group which I joined earlier this year.
In setting up the new website, I took the opportunity to use the platform to promote some of my images for sale as unmounted prints, something I have been considering for a couple of years.
My new website currently offers two A4 landscape books, Behind the Scaffolding and Transformation, and a number of prints for sale. Both books are scheduled to be published in October.
I am pleased to launch this new venture to you, my highly valued blogpost readers. In doing so I am also offering a 15% pre-publication discount on the two books until 30 September. To take up this offer, visit the website at www.martinleitchphotography.online and use the discount code is PREPUB2024. Delivery will be mid-October.
Irrespective of you wishing to purchase copies, please take a look through website and send me some feedback, particularly if you feel there is anything that can be improved.
Of course, this is not the end, it is only the beginning – I have ideas for a couple of other books which I will be launching in the not too distant future. Until then, thank you once again.