| Title | Garden of Delight |
| Artist | Nick Hannes |
| Designer | Desirée De Winter & Nick Hannes |
| Separations | Colour & Books |
| Press checks | Colour & Books |
| Production | Sarah Keymeulen |
| Publisher | Hannibal+ André Frère Editions |
| Printer | Die Keure, Belgium |
| Binder | Brepols |
| Pages | 188 |
| Paper | Gloss machine coated |
| Binding | Otabind Soft Cover with flaps |
| Reproduction | cmyk |
| ISBN | 978 949267 776 1 |
| Year | 2018 |
The Book
Garden of Delight is a photobook by Nick Hannes focused on the immense amount of leisure activities available in Dubai for tourists and the wealthier citizens. It is meant to be a reflection upon a city that rose out of the literal dust in record time. Dubai can be seen as a prime example of capitalism and globalization. However, at the same time the book is supposed to raise questions about the authenticity and sustainability.
Garden of delight shows Dubai as the fascinating city it is with it’s shopping malls, artificial islands and large skyscrapers that define the skyline. But also as a city that deals with the struggle of the expats that live there in large amounts and the culture they bring with them versus the local citizens and their traditional Islamic values.
The Process
Garden of delight is meant to have a documentary kind of feel, therefor the images should not feel overly edited. However, they do need to seduce the audience to stay with them and bring you along on the journey through Dubai. So it needs to have a clear focus, a sense of three dimensionality and an articulate expression of light should also be present. However, the colours need to be natural looking. Moreover, the images need to be printed with the right kind of ink. A lot to think about when editing these images and making sure they come out right on paper.
Nick had come to me with his images for this book after his first experience with making a book had left him unsatisfied with the colour reproduction on paper. So getting it right this time was very important. Fortunately, Nick and I worked hard on this project and ended up with a great result!
