“The Inspired Eye” by David duChemin – e-books review
The series
“The Inspired eye III”, released today by Craft and Vision, is, as the title implies, the third in the series. Neither of those e-books is your typical photography book, like many we read those days. You will not find any Photoshop how-tos in this e-book series. In fact, there would be no mention of HDR or even histogram there. Thinking about it, I don’t think there is any talk abut the camera at all. And yet, you will want to read them, to learn something about yourself and how to approach your photographing life not from technical side, but from your mind. “The inspired eye” can be best characterized a series of essays on creativity and inspiration. David duChemin fills in the hole in this type of literature.
Interestingly, many ideas in the e-book series are not original. In fact, most of them are commonsense. Like: you need to work and then work some more to move forward. Or: you need to draw inspiration from other photographers and especially- other visual artists. Slow down and take time for the final image to eventually emerge from the series of sketches. You heard it before, right? But have you really done it? Have you paid attention to it? Sometimes, we really need to be repeatedly told those most obvious truth to sink in. And there is many more ideas to apply to your process in this three e-book series, which will help you to get more out of … yourself, and with that become better photographer. To really take something out of those e-books, it is not enough to just read them. You need to think it through, study your process and what works best for you, and then take advantage of it.
The “Inspired eye” e-books are filled with quotes from famous people on creativity, inspiration, talent and work. Many of those people are not photographers, but all other kings of creatives, including actors (Marilyn Monroe) and quite a few scientist and inventors (like Nikola Tesla). It always intrigues me, when the writers sprinkle the text with quotes, how did they manage to gather such a collection of quotes and how well they fit into the flow of their book.
The concept I find the most intriguing, as I have never felt this way, is to treat an image as a sketch. When you start working on a project, is it a series or a single image, you visualize what it will look like. And then go down to shoot it. By changing angles, lenses, weather, time of the day- all the conditions, maybe even subject itself, you shoot and reshoot until you achieve at one point the final photograph, matching what you envisioned. In this sense, photography is like writing a novel, with the re-writing and revisions until it reads as imagined. In the “Inspired eye III” there is even a spread of David duChemin’s process leading to the finished image.
If the subject intrigued you, take a look at all three “The inspired eye” e-books (see the special offer below), and you might also check out “Your creative mix” by David duChemin’s manager, Corwin Hiebert. Don’t take your creativity for granted, practice and nurture it to use it to the full potential.
The deals
As usual, there are release week deals. Use the promotional code EYETHREE4 at checkout, and get the PDF version of “The Inspired Eye III” for only $4 OR use the code EYETHREE20 to get 20% off when you buy 5 or more PDF ebooks from the Craft & Vision collection. And there are e-books on many subjects to choose from. These codes expire at 11:59pm PST September 24th, 2011.
There is also a special “bundle” offer- if you click on this link, you can directly purchase all three “Inspired Eye” e-books for just $12.
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