About the book

A 290 x 230 book in box format, with reversible front pages and magnetic clasp. 240 interior pages plus covers.

Texts edited in Spanish, English, German and French. 4/4 print, full colour, on both sides. Interior: printed on heavyweight coated paper (150 gr). Covers printed on idem 170 gr. Laminated (1 mat cover). Sewn stitch binding. Hardcover counter glued. Book covers glued. Interior endpapers glued.

HR photographs equivalent to medium format cameras (50 MP).

The book includes a virtual visit according to the official index of the complete 7,4 km long trail by 360 HR-panoramic views.

Optionally the book is presented in a wooden box.

Edition

The book includes a QR code providing direct access to the interactive multimedia content which characterizes the multi accessibility.

Multi accessibility: Sign guides and Locutions

The virtual visit is offered over the 7,4 km long trail and includes specific locution on each of the 50 panoramic views spoken in the 4 mentioned languages and expressed in a sign guide video in Spanish.

Trailer

Why to participate in the project?

This question is easy to answer: To help us to get the book printed.

What are our reasons to publish the book?

Among different possible answers, the most significant is that we believe in our book.

We hope to be able to share our experience without any obstacle with all kind of users: persons who enjoy reading; persons who don’t; those who prefer to listen and, last but not least, disabled or impaired persons.

We hope to be able to open the way to allow this multi accessible format to start a series of future projects with similar characteristics.

We believe in the importance of launching a project which can be enjoyed without any restriction.

We already brought in the economic means to produce the book until the moment of its printing. A project of such a magnitude normally counts on a specific multi professional team to cover the different areas. As a multidisciplinary ‘mini’ team, we worked overtime to make our project come true, to get it published, on one hand, but conserving our creative autonomy, on the other.

This has a lot to do with the times we live in, because anybody, grown up along with technological advances, had to pass through different levels of knowledge and, after the years, the experience acquired may be sufficient to create and develop a project starting from an initial idea.

Therefore, we have been able to keep the costs arisen until the present in reasonable margins.

Where will your contributions go to?

Basically they will be destined to print the book and to ship the awards. As already mentioned, we do not expect to be refunded for the full amount of the costs arisen.

First, because both, the pdf and the virtual visit including the locutions in 4 languages and the 50 videos of the sign guides, are done already.

Second, our project is meant to be a contribution to culture, an aim we consider our responsibility. We hope to be able to recover part of our investment selling the books left after the initial crowdfunding or after a second edition.

Each person who collaborates supporting our project, apart from a special mention in the printed edition, will obtain a 25 % discount on the retail price.

How arose the idea?

Working as a photograph, I was asked in 1986 to make a report in Ipar / Euskal Herria. The proposed format was what is known as “great reports” having to cover different local aspects including gastronomy, sports and culture.

In the Kursiñe hamlet I was received by Agustín Ibarrola and his wife Mari Luz. During the interview, I learned about the existence of “The Painted Forest of Oma”, that fascinated me.

24 years later, I returned to the village with my little daughter. As if time had been frozen, I got the opportunity to share witch Agustín Ibarrola the idea of making an immersive visit of the forest using technological features I had beta tested in 1994 for Apple.

Yet it took another 6 years to return to the project, but with a changed focus. When I met Gabi, we considered to bring in her skills to relate her knowledge and to put it down. That’s how the idea of making a book of paper with digital content came up.

Short presentation

A new format and way to approach a book – reading, looking, listening and surfing… in Spanish, English, German and French; the format is also accessible to disabled or impaired persons. Each and everybody will be able to enjoy the Oma Forest by means of this polyvalent format.

The project

As we could start from a prototype made in 2010, we went on with 360 panoramic views and photographing the “official views”. This was my job.

In the prologue to our book, Gabi describes her sensations as follows:

*“In the spring of 2016, we travelled together to Euskadi, Ricardo to make new photographs, and I still undecided and unsure how to tackle my part. Only one thing was clear, my texts should represent something different from the existing documentation material.

The first stops and figures left me fairly undazzled. The magic of the place had not captured me yet. It was cold and the sky cloudy, a good day for photographs. My inspiration still remained elusive after a couple of hours. Between his recordings at each stop and jotting a few notes down, I finally began to perceive the forest in other different contexts and concepts. The ‘genius loci’, the spirit of place, had reached me…”*

Photography

The standard question to a photographer is: Which equipment did you use to do the job? This is how to ask a writer for the word processor he used.

In this context, however, we have to mention the technology employed, because in order to reach our objective, we depended on specific equipment. We could have done differently, but from the very beginning we aimed to reach the aspects and performances our project deserved.

Still-photographs

I wanted the photographs to be focussed on the oeuvre, but including the environment also.

Therefore, I used a lens Cannon had been developing for about 8 years: EF 11-24 mm f/4 L USM; the most angular zoom rectilinear to be found on the market. Although preferring the focal still, in this case, I used an objective with 3 aspheric lenses and an optical architecture based on 16 elements, just to give an idea about the complexity.

In order to take advantage of so much information, I needed a full frame camera of high resolution.

Photo 3478x2297

The proper camera was a 50 MP (8688x5792p / 350 dpi), which, operating without a low-pass cancellation filter included in the cameras to prevent the moiré effect, augments the clarity of the pictures with a minimum of distortion. Ideal for landscapes.

Panoramas

The panoramic views were taken by means of a specific equipment; once finished the stitching, they offer a resolution of 230 MP.

That means we obtained a resolution 5 x higher than any best quality panorama, a fact that allows to zoom the pictures when exploring the forest in detail without any quality loss.

We were guided by the idea to offer the virtual visit independently to all those who had not read the book before.

How to surf

Sign guides

It was a great surprise that the CILSEM Association generously agreed to collaborate with our project. We appreciate the help and advice of Francisco Carrasco Hernández, our interlocutor, to make this part of the project possible. Not only collaborating, as they did, for the sake of their profession, but even going so far to “delay” the recordings in order to find out the “appropriate nuance in Basque sign language”.

Furthermore, the impeccable technical skills of Pedro Iván Carrasco Hernández and the superb image of Paula Álvarez Fernández, her expressiveness when transmitting the sign language even to people who don’t understand it at all.

Locutions

We decided to include locutions in 4 languages to accompany the interactive content. And to do so, we counted on four marvellous voices that transform the virtual visit into a tale…