My first book (my 37th comes out in Spring 2010) was a thin, but mighty photo-driven tome titled Driftwood Whimsy: The Sculptures of the Emeryville Mudflats. I had lived on the fringes of the San Francisco Bay Area town of Emeryville since 1971 and had marveled at the sculptures people surreptitiously constructed in the Emeryville Crescent, a wedge of swampy land nestled between busy Interstate 80 and the Bay Bridge. Locals called the area the Emeryville Mudflats for obvious reasons. I was a budding photographer and would often tramp down to the mudflats, usually under cover of darkness to photograph the odd and whimsical constructions. Eventually my photographs wound up illustrating a feature article in Smithsonian magazine. That was all good and wonderful, of course, and it did boost my flagging photographic self-esteem.
Then some well-intentioned friend suggested that my photographs of the sculptures would make a fine glossy photo book.
Read the whole amazing story and not just this excerpt.
This story was suggested to me by my great friend Michael Pokocky, a great writer (unsigned so you better hurry up if you are a publisher) himself and a man of unconventional wisdom.
More on Michael can be found here:
Facebook http://www.facebook.com/home.php#/group.php?gid=53390913406&ref=ts
Or his website at the Redroom at
http://www.redroom.com/member/michaelwpokocky
The Desk of the Renaissance Man 