Making Photographs: Developing a Personal Visual Workflow

With today’s photo technology, almost anyone can pick up a camera and create a photograph that is well-exposed and in focus. And if you take enough pictures, you’re bound to get lucky and create a few “keepers” that impress family and friends. But eventually, you hit a wall; you know you’re relying more on luck than skill. Even learning to control the fundamental, technical components of the craft—shutter speed, aperture, and ISO—only takes you so far. The real challenges remain: How can you learn to make good images consistently? And how can you really start to “see” photographic possibilities all around you?

In Making Photographs, photographer, educator, and author Ibarionex Perello teaches you how to face and conquer such challenges. He shares the approach and techniques he’s honed over the last 15 years conducting workshops and teaching photography courses to countless students of the craft. The key to this approach, Ibarionex argues, is to develop and implement a visual workflow that allows you to create a repeatable process for your photography. This workflow revolves around the four “visual draws”—light and shadow, line and shape, color, and gesture. As Ibarionex discusses each of these visual draws, you’ll learn how to move beyond merely “looking” at the world around you to “seeing” photographic possibilities at every turn. It is this act of seeing that gives photography its magic—and you the vital tool you need to improve your work. Rather than simply taking pictures, you’ll begin making photographs.

Ibarionex also covers topics such as exposure, composition, preparation, lighting, the role of emotion, culling your images, self-assessment, and post-processing. Alongside discussion of these themes and principles, he presents the stories behind his photographs, which reveal his thought process as he works through a scene; shares entries from his personal photographic journal, relaying successes, failures, discoveries, and breakthroughs; and includes assignments and personal challenges to inspire and motivate you to put these principles into immediate action in your photography.