In September 2009 my mother, Sue Miles, was diagnosed with lung cancer and a brain tumour. While I was trying to come to terms with the fact she was dying, I decided I wanted, or maybe needed, to document the time she had left. I didn’t want to create a graphic portrayal of her death, it would have been impossible and wrong to focus only on the dying part, but rather I wanted to photograph our last months together. I looked at the things that made her uniquely her, the details in her house I thought I knew so well, the things that would also be gone when she was.
Her love of flowers was a beautiful part of her personality; the house was always full of them, and as I photographed them I realised they were symbolic of what was happening - they represented happiness, love, kindness and generosity, but also isolation, decay, and finally death.
THE PLAN
After laying the project to rest and rebuilding my life after her death, four years on I would like to publish a book to share our story, I have been truly touched by the responses I have had, both by people who have been affected by a similar situation or just people who felt the need to write to me after seeing it. But to do this I need to raise the funds to cover my share of the costs of the production and distributing of the published book, and that’s what I’m asking all you kind people for help with.
If I can reach my funding target a beautiful hardback book will be published by Dewi Lewis Publishing. The company is recognised as one of the leading photographic publishers in the world. Their photography list has an international reputation and includes books by leading British and international photographers such as William Klein, Martin Parr, Simon Norfolk, Fay Godwin, John Blakemore, Paolo Pelegrin and Bruce Gilden. We would aim to publish the book in early 2016.
I’ve produced a dummy book (pictured below), which along with the whole project, has been received very well, it's been exhibiting around the UK and internationally and has been nominated for an variety of awards including the European Publishers Award and the Deutsche Bank Awards in 2011. It's also been featured in a wide range of magazines, including The Telegraph Magazine who ran a five page feature about it (see below).
The photography part of the project is complete, edited and the book has been designed, by myself (I used to be a graphic designer) with valuable input from the publisher. The book will be ready to send to the printers very soon.
So, if you like this story and would like to see it published I really hope you can join me in this by supporting this project.
Thank you all so much in advance!
ABOUT ME
I’m a documentary photographer specialising in British based stories, fascinated by small abstract details of everyday life. Based in London, I spend my time between personal documentary projects, exhibiting work, and undertaking commercial and editorial work. My work has been published and exhibited in a variety of places such as The Telegraph Magazine, The Independent, The New Yorker, London Photography Festival, Hereford Photography Festival, Encontros da Imagem Photography Festival.
I’m also a regular sessional lecturer in narrative photography on the BA (Hons) Digital Photography course at Ravensbourne University in London.
You can see some of my other work on my website: www.celinemarchbank.com
You can read the Tulip blog, which is where the project started from: www.livingwithcancernow.wordpress.com
Also please check out my main blog, where I've been writing a lot about the new project I'm working on about my mother. I also post updates on other new projects along with news of any exhibitions I'm having: www.celinemarchbank.wordpress.com
Thank you all so much for looking and reading this all!!
REWARDS
There are a selection of different rewards on offer, postcards from the project, to limited edition prints, and you can also pre-order the book. Please take a look, I hope you like them.
NEW REWARD JUST ADDED!
For reward LIMITED EDITION PRINT IN HANDMADE OAK FRAME. You have a choice of five images: www.celinemarchbank.com/kickstarter-print-rewards
Please email me your choice: celine@celinemarchbank.com
Risks and challenges
The obstacles are primarily financial, as all the work for the project has already been produced. All the funds raised will support the significant costs of producing this book. The work is complete, the book design is very nearly complete, I just want to tweak a couple of pages just to move a few images around, and alter the cover slightly by choosing the right type of cloths. Other than that all the work is already done.
After I have hopefully raised the funding support from all you kind people and then supplied the final work to the printers, I suppose the completion of the book relies on the publisher, but as they are one of the most well respected photo book publishers in Britain I have no reason to believe there will be any problems. The book will be printed in Verona in Italy, and both Dewi Lewis and myself will be present to proof the book as it is printed.
Once the funding is (hopefully!) reached it’s full steam ahead with getting the book published in a time frame of about 3 months. I am hoping to have it published by March 2016 at the very latest.
There will be regular progress updates and news so that you can see how the process is moving forward.
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Rewards
Funding period
- (29 days)