Be the Work You Want to Produce

 If you want to have more creative work, find creative moments in your everyday life. If you want to have more emotionally captivating work, let your everyday life captivate you emotionally. If you want your work to be more diverse and interesting, lead a more diverse and interesting life. In simpler terms, your work is only as good as the inspiration that you find in the life you lead.

VincentVersace writing in Scott Kelby's Photoshop Insider

I've been a fan of Vincent Versace ever since he published his first edition of Welcome to Oz: A Cinematic Appproach to Digital Still Photography almost five years ago.  This past year he came out with a totally revised second edition that I grabbed as soon as it was available.  Now it looks like a third book is coming out later this fall on black and white photography, and I can't wait to get my hands on it.

Why do I keep going back to Vincent Versace?  For one thing, he produces exquisite images.  Though his books teach post-capture technique, if that were the only thing they offered they would be excruciatingly boring in their minutia.  More important to me, his books are about using technique to achieve expression of emotion. Indeed, it's the emotion that informs the artistic expression.  As Versace says, "Emotionally full and technically imperfect trumps technically perfect and emotionally vacant every time."

Even if I never used his books to help me improve my craft in post-capture processing, what Versace says about art, expression and vision in his books makes them worth reading and owning.

I look forward to devouring his latest offering, even if I never produce a single black and white image again.