The Visual Palette: Defining Your Photographic Style - Softcover

Matiash, Brian

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1937538699 ISBN 13: 9781937538699

Publisher: Rocky Nook, 2015

Synopsis

With just a rudimentary understanding of exposure and composition, one can capture fairly competent images of attractive subjects. But is that image remarkable in any way? Does it really say anything? How does one capture, edit, and share images that stand out from the crowd and express a distinct vision of the world? How do photographers develop and define their own voice?

In The Visual Palette: Defining Your Photographic Style, photographer Brian Matiash outlines and illustrates mindsets, approaches, and techniques that photographers can implement in order to apply their own unique stamp on their photos. Matiash concentrates on the ability to train oneself to “see differently”―whether you’re behind the camera, editing an image, or sharing your photo with others―and this book explores ways to help photographers do just that. Matiash examines his own path to creativity and personal style and then encourages readers to use that knowledge gained to forge their own paths.

What sets The Visual Palette apart is that Matiash considers the entire image-making process, including both image capture and post-processing, when discussing how to develop a photographic style and express one’s vision. Throughout photography’s history, astute photographers always knew there were two crucial opportunities to express oneself: during the capture and in the darkroom. As Ansel Adams said, “The negative is comparable to the composer's score and the print to its performance.” In that same spirit, The Visual Palette considers both image capture and post-processing as equal partners in the creation of the image and the expression of one’s vision.

The book is organized into three sections: composition, post-processing (what Matiash calls “Stylization and Editing”), and sharing. Each chapter tackles a concept, such as compositional rules (and when to break them), then Matiash shares “My Story,” with a specific example of that concept in action in his own work. Finally, there is a “Your Story” segment where, with prompts and exercises, Matiash empowers and motivates the reader to examine their own work or practice a new technique in order to further develop their own photographic style.

Beautifully illustrated with Matiash’s photographs, the book covers topics that range from fundamental to creative. The ideal reader is a beginning to intermediate photographer, including photography enthusiasts, hobbyists, advanced amateurs, and any and all photographers interested in landscape, nature, urban, and architectural genres of photography.

About this title

About the Author

Brian Matiash is a Portland-based photographer, author, and speaker who has been pursuing and growing his particular brand of imagery since 1996. Matiash has an obsession with long-exposure photography, fisheye lenses, and neutral density filters. Alongside his photography, Matiash’s passion is to help others help themselves with their own photography pursuits. He is a regular contributor to magazines such as Photoshop User and Photoshop Elements Techniques, as well as to the popular Photofocus photography blog. He is also proud to be a member of Sony’s Artisans of Imagery. Visit his work and blog at brianmatiash.com.

Review

“I’ve never met anyone who has the exceptional writing and storytelling abilities to help others along their photographic journey like Brian does. If you’re a photographer at heart, you'll instantly connect with the candid discussions, passion, focus, and transparency that Brian shares throughout these pages. He shows how greatness in photography results from connecting the little things we do (things that just about anyone with a camera can do) to the big goal that drives all of us as we pick up our camera: creating photos that are meaningful and make us proud.”
― Matt Kloskowski, Landscape and Outdoor Photographer

“The Visual Palette is not first a book about making better photographs, or even good photographs, though it is also that. It is primarily a book about making photographs that are yours. It’s an important distinction because more people own and use cameras now than ever before. We do not need more photographs; we need more authentic photographs. The Visual Palette will set you on the path to making better photographs by first making photographs that are distinctly your own.”
― David duChemin, Photographer, Author of Within the Frame

“The only book that you need to take your photography to the next level. Written, of course, by someone who is colorblind. Go figure!” ― Guy Kawasaki, Chief evangelist, Canva, and author of The Art of the Start 2.0

Edition details

• Publisher: Rocky Nook
• Publication date: 2015
• ISBN 10: 1937538699
• ISBN 13: 9781937538699
• Binding: Paperback
• Language: English
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 216