NorCal Guide John Rickard “Crowdfunding” McCloud Photography Book Using Kickstarter Site

Northern California fly fishing guide, CalTrout supporter and photographer John Rickard is using the “crowdfunding” Kickstarter site to fund his fine art photography book on the McCloud River. (Could any river be more deserving?)

Rickard, who has fished the McCloud for decades and has photographed it for the past 14 years, is using a 6×7 medium format film camera to make most of his images, and reproducing them via the decidedly old school method of silver gelatin prints.

The resulting photographs are deep and rich, and lack the sometimes “hollow” look of digitally produced and manipulated photographs.

McCloud River, John Rickard

In order to fund what is clearly a niche book, Rickard and Modernbook — his San Francisco-based publisher — are using Kickstarter to pre-sell copies of his McCloud River book. Any person can help fund his Kickstarter project by donating money, with donations above $75 receiving a free copy of the book (the more you give, the more you get when the book is published).

From Rickard’s Kickstarter page:

For the past 14 years, I have worked on photographing The McCloud River capturing her beauty, wisdom, and humor. This work has grown out of a deep personal connection and relationship between man and wild. This is my McCloud River Project.

Once the McCloud River Project was complete it became evident that the body of work formed a narrative. Thus a publication was the next logical step.

In collaboration with Modernbook, a photography gallery and book publisher in San Francisco, this collection of photographs will be published into a fine art book in December 2012. The book will be hard-bound 10″x12”, 112 pages in an edition of 1000. In addition, we will also be publishing a limited edition of 100 with a signed print, numbered, matted and placed with the book in a handmade clam-shell box.

CalTrout has protected and improved the McCloud’s world-class fishery throughout the recent FERC relicensing of the McCloud dam project, and considers the McCloud one of the west’s most-beautiful fisheries.

“An impressive piece of work that captures the essence of one of California’s most treasured rivers can only be a good thing for those who want to protect the McCloud from threats like dam raising,” said CalTrout Executive Director Jeff Thompson.

The fundraising effort is essentially a go/no-go process; if Rickard’s Kickstarter effort is fully funded by the July 20 deadline, Rickards receives the money and the project moves forward. If it doesn’t reach its funding goal, the project gets nothing and he starts over.

It's not all fish...