Home > Articles > Home & Office Computing > Entertainment/Gaming/Gadgets

Take Cover! The True Crime Story Behind the Controversial Cover for "Shoot to Thrill: A Hard-Boiled Guide to Digital Photography"

Derek Pell, author of Shoot to Thrill: A Hard-Boiled Guide to Digital Photography, describes how a gun-totin' PI pistol-whipped (with a water pistol) his publisher, forcing them to bite the bullet and use his hard-boiled cover design.
Like this article? We recommend

Gun-shy.

That's what they are. Nervous Nellies. Point a gun at a technical book publisher and they get all wobbly in the knees. They sweat bullets and head for the hills. They're used to dealing with unembellished facts, pristine stats, and data. They never come face to face with high drama, sex, and violence. Fiction, satire, and slang are nowhere to be found among books on digital photography, where sunsets, brides, and smiley faces abound.

Confronted with a cynical, shutterbug packin' heat in a trench coat and fedora—well, publishers suddenly shake, rattle, roll over, and play dead.

BANG.

Case in point: the cover of my book, Shoot to Thrill: A Hard-Boiled Guide to Digital Photography.

Figure 1 My original cover photo

The original cover design didn't ruffle any feathers. It looked like a still plucked from a low-budget Film Noir classic, and was tame by hard-boiled 1940's standards. Shadowy and subtle, it had a trace of menace, sure, but nothing that would leap off the shelf and threaten potential customers, barking "Buy This Book Or We'll Kill the Author."

It was my idea. I shot it, I liked it, I gave it to the publisher. No objections, no praise, it was noir for the course. But I was haunted by a feeling that something was missing. The word "thrill" was in the title, not to mention "shoot." So where were the thrills?

When I was about 150 pages into the manuscript, I was out on location taking night shots on the mean streets of San Diego. (This city, by the way, is a gold mine for noiristas, you just have to know where to look. It never got the headlines like L.A. and San Francisco, even though Raymond Chandler lived in La Jolla for a while. So I'm determined to put it on the map with my next book—San Diego Noir.)

Zoom Street's DV guru, Wendell Sweda, was down from Santa Monica playing the heav, while I supplied the heat—a Chinese-made Saturday Night Special. Unfortunately, it was Friday night and the gun fell apart after only 10 minutes. No sweat; I had backups. I came prepared; seven guns in all. I bought 'em the day before in a value pack at CVS. It was a real steal, even if it wasn't real steel.

I reached into my bag and selected an orange-colored blaster to replace the green plastic dud but—lo and behold—during the break, Sweda managed to patch up the weapon.

Our first location was under a mammoth Moreton Bay fig tree in Balboa Park, where I set up a 39 x 72-inch aluminum Photoflex Lite-Panel—a snap to set up, even in the dark.

Unfortunately, I should've packed a sandbag because a stiff breeze blew in off the Bay just as we started shooting. This had the two of us shouting, lurching, grabbing, and hand-holding. (No, not that kind of hand-holding.)

I employed a single studio strobe powered by a Tronix Explorer XT. I didn't need the strobe's umbrella because I was using the LitePanel for bounce. Hold the wedding—I take it back—I could've used an umbrella when the park's sprinkler system kicked in and put an abrupt end to the session. We retreated to my car parked across the street in front of a church.

As I was loading the wet gear into the trunk, I looked up at the building. Spanish Revival: red clay mission-tiled roof, whitewashed stucco walls, two side staircases lit by lanterns casting a noirish glow. I mounted a Nikon SB-900 speedlight on the camera's hot shoe and said, "OK, just one more shot and we'll call it a night."

I had him take up a position on the staircase, gun in hand. He stuck an unlit cigarette in his mouth and I lay on the ground. I told him to aim the gun right at me as I skewed the camera angle. In the viewfinder I saw a mob hitman. I was about to take my last shot on this earth. Didn't matter that the gun pointed at my head was green, I knew what color my blood would be. I told him to fire, then squeezed the shutter…

[1/60 sec at f/4.0, ISO 400]

Looked pretty good on my D90's LCD screen, but the next day, in Adobe Lightroom, I reviewed the image and—bang—knew I had the perfect cover. Just needed a bit of tweaking in Photoshop CS4.

Figure 2 The untouched killer photo

First thing I did was kill the color of the water pistol. I also enlarged the barrel so it appeared more realistic. The shadow behind the subject was too subtle. Using the Pen Tool, I made a careful selection around the hitman, copied it, pasted it over the original, and applied a drop shadow.

Figure 3 I fine-tuned the selection using Photoshop's refine edge feature.

To emphasize the gritty, hard-boiled quality of the scene, I used a High Dynamic Range technique (I discuss HDRI in detail in the book). This brightened the image a bit too much, so I adjusted the color for moodier light.

The image was good to go; my only concern was that it might be too late to change the cover. As it turned out, time was not the problem. The problem was the photo itself.

Point blank, the publisher informed there would be "no gun on the cover."

They were worried chain stores like Barnes & Noble wouldn't stock the book.

Did I hear that right?

Sheesh, practically every book in B&N has a gun on its cover.

A shootout ensued. E-mails flew back and forth between me and the publisher and ricocheted off a dozen computers.

BANG!! BANG!!

My agent was on vacation so I had no backup… I was surrounded.

BANG! BANG!

"It's a bloody squirt gun," I bellowed.

BANG! BANG!

"Tech books don't have guns on the cover!"

BANG! BANG!

"They do now!"

BANG-BANG-BANG!

***

When the smoke finally cleared, the publisher had seen the light (and the noir shadows). We all had scars to show for the battle, but the war was over.

Shoot to Thrill would hit the bookstores armed and dangerous.

Figure 4 BANG.

InformIT Promotional Mailings & Special Offers

I would like to receive exclusive offers and hear about products from InformIT and its family of brands. I can unsubscribe at any time.

Overview


Pearson Education, Inc., 221 River Street, Hoboken, New Jersey 07030, (Pearson) presents this site to provide information about products and services that can be purchased through this site.

This privacy notice provides an overview of our commitment to privacy and describes how we collect, protect, use and share personal information collected through this site. Please note that other Pearson websites and online products and services have their own separate privacy policies.

Collection and Use of Information


To conduct business and deliver products and services, Pearson collects and uses personal information in several ways in connection with this site, including:

Questions and Inquiries

For inquiries and questions, we collect the inquiry or question, together with name, contact details (email address, phone number and mailing address) and any other additional information voluntarily submitted to us through a Contact Us form or an email. We use this information to address the inquiry and respond to the question.

Online Store

For orders and purchases placed through our online store on this site, we collect order details, name, institution name and address (if applicable), email address, phone number, shipping and billing addresses, credit/debit card information, shipping options and any instructions. We use this information to complete transactions, fulfill orders, communicate with individuals placing orders or visiting the online store, and for related purposes.

Surveys

Pearson may offer opportunities to provide feedback or participate in surveys, including surveys evaluating Pearson products, services or sites. Participation is voluntary. Pearson collects information requested in the survey questions and uses the information to evaluate, support, maintain and improve products, services or sites, develop new products and services, conduct educational research and for other purposes specified in the survey.

Contests and Drawings

Occasionally, we may sponsor a contest or drawing. Participation is optional. Pearson collects name, contact information and other information specified on the entry form for the contest or drawing to conduct the contest or drawing. Pearson may collect additional personal information from the winners of a contest or drawing in order to award the prize and for tax reporting purposes, as required by law.

Newsletters

If you have elected to receive email newsletters or promotional mailings and special offers but want to unsubscribe, simply email information@informit.com.

Service Announcements

On rare occasions it is necessary to send out a strictly service related announcement. For instance, if our service is temporarily suspended for maintenance we might send users an email. Generally, users may not opt-out of these communications, though they can deactivate their account information. However, these communications are not promotional in nature.

Customer Service

We communicate with users on a regular basis to provide requested services and in regard to issues relating to their account we reply via email or phone in accordance with the users' wishes when a user submits their information through our Contact Us form.

Other Collection and Use of Information


Application and System Logs

Pearson automatically collects log data to help ensure the delivery, availability and security of this site. Log data may include technical information about how a user or visitor connected to this site, such as browser type, type of computer/device, operating system, internet service provider and IP address. We use this information for support purposes and to monitor the health of the site, identify problems, improve service, detect unauthorized access and fraudulent activity, prevent and respond to security incidents and appropriately scale computing resources.

Web Analytics

Pearson may use third party web trend analytical services, including Google Analytics, to collect visitor information, such as IP addresses, browser types, referring pages, pages visited and time spent on a particular site. While these analytical services collect and report information on an anonymous basis, they may use cookies to gather web trend information. The information gathered may enable Pearson (but not the third party web trend services) to link information with application and system log data. Pearson uses this information for system administration and to identify problems, improve service, detect unauthorized access and fraudulent activity, prevent and respond to security incidents, appropriately scale computing resources and otherwise support and deliver this site and its services.

Cookies and Related Technologies

This site uses cookies and similar technologies to personalize content, measure traffic patterns, control security, track use and access of information on this site, and provide interest-based messages and advertising. Users can manage and block the use of cookies through their browser. Disabling or blocking certain cookies may limit the functionality of this site.

Do Not Track

This site currently does not respond to Do Not Track signals.

Security


Pearson uses appropriate physical, administrative and technical security measures to protect personal information from unauthorized access, use and disclosure.

Children


This site is not directed to children under the age of 13.

Marketing


Pearson may send or direct marketing communications to users, provided that

  • Pearson will not use personal information collected or processed as a K-12 school service provider for the purpose of directed or targeted advertising.
  • Such marketing is consistent with applicable law and Pearson's legal obligations.
  • Pearson will not knowingly direct or send marketing communications to an individual who has expressed a preference not to receive marketing.
  • Where required by applicable law, express or implied consent to marketing exists and has not been withdrawn.

Pearson may provide personal information to a third party service provider on a restricted basis to provide marketing solely on behalf of Pearson or an affiliate or customer for whom Pearson is a service provider. Marketing preferences may be changed at any time.

Correcting/Updating Personal Information


If a user's personally identifiable information changes (such as your postal address or email address), we provide a way to correct or update that user's personal data provided to us. This can be done on the Account page. If a user no longer desires our service and desires to delete his or her account, please contact us at customer-service@informit.com and we will process the deletion of a user's account.

Choice/Opt-out


Users can always make an informed choice as to whether they should proceed with certain services offered by InformIT. If you choose to remove yourself from our mailing list(s) simply visit the following page and uncheck any communication you no longer want to receive: www.informit.com/u.aspx.

Sale of Personal Information


Pearson does not rent or sell personal information in exchange for any payment of money.

While Pearson does not sell personal information, as defined in Nevada law, Nevada residents may email a request for no sale of their personal information to NevadaDesignatedRequest@pearson.com.

Supplemental Privacy Statement for California Residents


California residents should read our Supplemental privacy statement for California residents in conjunction with this Privacy Notice. The Supplemental privacy statement for California residents explains Pearson's commitment to comply with California law and applies to personal information of California residents collected in connection with this site and the Services.

Sharing and Disclosure


Pearson may disclose personal information, as follows:

  • As required by law.
  • With the consent of the individual (or their parent, if the individual is a minor)
  • In response to a subpoena, court order or legal process, to the extent permitted or required by law
  • To protect the security and safety of individuals, data, assets and systems, consistent with applicable law
  • In connection the sale, joint venture or other transfer of some or all of its company or assets, subject to the provisions of this Privacy Notice
  • To investigate or address actual or suspected fraud or other illegal activities
  • To exercise its legal rights, including enforcement of the Terms of Use for this site or another contract
  • To affiliated Pearson companies and other companies and organizations who perform work for Pearson and are obligated to protect the privacy of personal information consistent with this Privacy Notice
  • To a school, organization, company or government agency, where Pearson collects or processes the personal information in a school setting or on behalf of such organization, company or government agency.

Links


This web site contains links to other sites. Please be aware that we are not responsible for the privacy practices of such other sites. We encourage our users to be aware when they leave our site and to read the privacy statements of each and every web site that collects Personal Information. This privacy statement applies solely to information collected by this web site.

Requests and Contact


Please contact us about this Privacy Notice or if you have any requests or questions relating to the privacy of your personal information.

Changes to this Privacy Notice


We may revise this Privacy Notice through an updated posting. We will identify the effective date of the revision in the posting. Often, updates are made to provide greater clarity or to comply with changes in regulatory requirements. If the updates involve material changes to the collection, protection, use or disclosure of Personal Information, Pearson will provide notice of the change through a conspicuous notice on this site or other appropriate way. Continued use of the site after the effective date of a posted revision evidences acceptance. Please contact us if you have questions or concerns about the Privacy Notice or any objection to any revisions.

Last Update: November 17, 2020