Short book review: Paris City of Bikes

Blurb Book Paris City of Bikes, originally uploaded by topfloor.

As I enjoy reading photobooks very much, I order Print on demand books via Blurb.com from time to time, especially when fellow Flickr shooters publish their work via the Blurb site.

Searching for tags such as city names and Streetphotography brought my attention to this book 'Paris City of Bikes' by Nirit Sumeruk (48 pages for 23.95 Euros plus Shipping). The book is all around Streetphotography in Paris with at least part of a bike in the frame.

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Description of this book on the Blurb site: 'A photography book that captures Paris in it's very natural picturesque form, using bicycles as an excuse to do so! Every photograph is a timeless snap-shot of the city - with bikes gracing every single shot carrying the viewer to the next page... This is an unconventional "travel" book to make one fall in love with Paris.'
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The book arrived yesterday, so I glanced through it. The pictures often have some poewer in them, and quite many of the shots on the left and right hand side of a spread work well together.

The downside of a good portion of the pictures in this book is that Sumeruk published pics that have really over- or underexposed parts in them and in a way that is not pleasing the eye. Working with the ND-Filter in Lightrrom (or with a grad ND filter in front of the lens) might have helped. Judging these pics as they are, their compositional quality is okay or good, but the wrongly exposed parts weaken the pics.

Conclusion: While an inspiration as a Streetphotography theme when visiting a city (linking pics via a theme such as bikes) the overall quality of the pictures in my opinion is not good enough to justify the price.

You can find this book at Blurb / bookstore via a search for the title.