The book has arrived

A couple of years ago, an editor from Bearport Publishing in New York contacted me about using one of the photos in my Flickr site (www.flickr.com/labah-labah) for their next book. It was one of my earliest photos of a giant trapdoor spider, therefore the photo was not really that nice. I seriously think that it was close to reject quality but I published it on my Flickr for sentimental sake. But it was also special as it showed the spider bolting out from the burrow, although I did not do a good jood at capturing it in an artistic manner. As I said, it was one of my earlierst encounter with such magnificent creature.

Beaport Publishing makes children books. For several reasons I did not ask for monetary payment and allowed them to use the photo for that book. This was under the impression that the book will help to educate the young generations on appreciating nature and dispel the myth of spiders being evil creatures as depicted in some popular folklore. They agreed to send me some complementary copies once the book is published. Unfortunately there was some delay in the process and I just received them last week.

Now here how the front page looks like.

This is where the give credits.

The photo is in page 11, showing an example of a trapdoor spider with silk threads radiating from the burrow.

Coincidentally I will be visiting the very site of where I took the photo very soon. I don’t know if it makes any sense for me to bring the book there and show the celebrity spider that her face is registered in the Library of Congress and distributed worldwide. It is exciting to imagine if she understands all those but on second thought I believe what she really appreciate is a quite life away from human intrusion.