If you’ve visited my site recently, you’ve probably noticed the Craft and Vision links on the side and bottom of my blog posts. Over the past half year, I’ve ran across a great deal of photography-related resources that have benefited me as a professional AND as a teacher, and one of the better resources I have come across is the Craft & Vision eBook library. The brainchild of David duChemin, Craft & Vision offers a series of highly affordable, content-loaded eBooks centered around the mission that spending and worrying less about gear and concentrating more on photographic and story-telling vision is most of the battle in photographic success. I tend to think along the same lines. Simply put, I don’t think there’s another set of resources that continually grows that compares for the price, content, and the overall quality of these eBooks. For this reason, I decided to become an affiliate, hoping to at least provide a channel to this wonderful resource!

That being said, periodically on this site, you might find an eBook review, and my first is the latest one available, titled Venice, A Monograph, by David duChemin. The book culminates a collection of images shot over a five-day span in Venice, supporting the theme: loneliness. The presentation is akin to few coffee-table books from photographers that want to exhibit a bit more about their images, such as how the shots came about, the process of thinking through an idea and seeing it created in their images, and staying cognizant of their surroundings and interpreting its meaning. The book opens with a short introduction, followed by several pages of just images. This section, referred to as The Print, contains no text, no commentary to interrupt the viewer, just meaningful imagery. True to monographic form, they follow suit with the theme, and several necessitate the viewer to dig deep for the correlation.

duChemin really capitalizes on The Process section, which revisits the images with short, insightful explanations of the reasoning behind each one. This section should hit home for those photographers interested in the thought process behind certain images, and it allows that photographer reinforcement of how they can conceptually develop photographic ideas. In an online world that is wrapped up in what gear it took to get certain shots, this book is a refreshing break into the thinking process and the visual and interpretive mind, which arguably is the most important tool a photographer can have! However, to satisfy the gear geek in all of us, duChemin did provide technical aspects for each of the shots, knowing that understanding how your equipment can aid you in accomplishing your vision is unavoidably significant.

From a photographers perspective, I love hearing the “why” in every shot, particularly if it comes from the photographer that created the image. I have spent a lot of time with many of my own mentors, conversing about various shots, immersing myself in their experiences, knowing that theirs will to some extent edify my own. From a teacher’s point of view, this is a strongly recommended read for new, upcoming, and established photography students and practitioners. We often get wrapped up in the technical side of the craft, or the business, giving too little time to consuming information that provides us interpretive insight in to the art and aesthetics of what we do for a living or as a hobby.

At 47 pages, Venice, A Monograph, by David duChemin, is well worth the $5.00 you’ll spend on it! Wait…$5.00? Yes, another point worth mentioning about the Craft & Vision eBook library is that each book is only $5.00. For the quality of information and packaging, this is a steal! The PDF format makes it easily viewable on the iPhone and iPad as well. Save yourself a few coffees, and check out their offerings!

On that note, Craft & Vision is also running a SPECIAL DEAL on Venice, A Monograph: starting June 10, for three days, use the offer code VENICE4 to purchase the book for $4.00 instead of the original $5.00. During that time, you can also use the offer code VENICE20 to get 20% off of your purchase of five (5) or more books from Craft & Vision. The coupon offers expire June 12, at 11:59 p.m. PST.