Book Announcement – The Motivation and Idea (part 1)
“If you only read the books that everyone else is reading, you can only think what everyone else is thinking.”
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Today, I’d like to share with you some insights about the project that I’ve started in December 2019 – when we first got to know about a virus spreading around the world. In a way, I anticipated that lockdowns may become an instrument to control the spread of the virus. I was thinking of the many photographers who, due to the lockdown, may no longer be able to travel the world, conduct workshops, and pursue their usual sources of income. How could one help these people, support them, but at the same time make good use of the time these wonderful people spend at home?
In parallel to this process, I have been thinking a lot a lot about the creative process in landscape photography. While reading lots of classical works by Minor White, Alfred Stieglitz, and many others, I asked myself where we stand today as artists given the tremendous negative impact social platforms have had on us. Platforms, that made us anti-social. Platforms, who prioritize consumption over thoughtful creation, who support social comparison and catapult individuals into mental treadmills. Platforms that make us addicted to run after some virtual engagement scores. Platforms that have slowed down a reflective, and thoughtful creative process.
However, creative minds exist, and I was able to meet many of them over the last few years. I am very fortunate to have very personal relationships with some of these people that make my life enjoyable and that I enjoy. Based on the discussions with them, I came up with the idea to create a book studying their individual creative processes. Thus, I invited roughly 30 of my favorite landscape photographic artists in the world to join me on that path. Combining them all in one book allows the reader to compare different creative processes of the world leaders in landscape photography. I am hand-selecting each photographer based on my subjective perception of her/his differential contribution to the field.
My intention was to give these artists space to talk about their creativity and to show some of their outstanding images. The result is a thick book with more than 120 photographs of these artists that I have created in self-publishing.
The contents of the book are ready. Currently, we are working on the layout and preparing the printing of the book. We look forward to telling you more about the book soon.
All the next blog articles will accompany the process and share more insights with you…