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Craft & Vision – The Free eBook
December 1st, 2011
A couple months ago I asked the photographers who write for Craft & Vision, if they’d help me put together a free eBook. I asked them to help me make something that we could just give away (as in FREE, no catches) to the photography community, especially to the students and enthusiastic amateurs among us. They responded really excitedly. The only guidance I gave them was this: it had to about something that could improve the craft of beginners or even advanced amateurs, it had to be something they cared about, and it couldn’t be recycled stuff from something they’d already written. In the end we put together 11 great essays that together will help photographers improve what they do.
This is practical stuff, not just 11 versions of “Improve your vision” or “Practice A Lot.” Eli Reinholdtsen wrote about the power of moments. Nicole S. Young wrote about more intentional compositions. Andrew S. Gibson wrote about personal projects and collaboration while Alexandre Buisse discussed sharing our work as a means to growth. Piet Van den Eynde, in his usual style, gave me two articles—one about giving your images a greater sense of energy, the other about seeing beyond the usual stereotypes about lenses. Landscape photographer Michael Frye talks about learning to direct the eyes of the readers of our photographs. Stuart Sipahigil wrote about slowing down and learning to see. An upcoming C&V author, Martin Bailey, sheds some light on printing. And I’ve chimed in with an article about taming digital exposures and creating stronger portraits.
Together we’ve tried to create something that is, and will always be, free. But more than that, we wanted it to be helpful. What we got was more than just amazing content – it’s almost 70 gorgeous pages and I’m really proud of the Craft & Vision family for creating it together. We welcome you to download it, to learn from it, and to tell others about it. It wasn’t specifically meant to be released around the holidays, because I think generosity should be a 12-month-a-year thing, but since it’s December 1st, let me also take this chance, on behalf of the whole Craft & Vision team, to wish you happy holidays and peace and beauty as the new year comes. If you download this and love it, would you help us spread the love and tell others? We’ll pay for the bandwidth if you’ll tweet about it, blog it up, and Facebook the heck out of it. 
Kia Ora. Thanks for the free ebook! Much appreciated. Can’t wait to download it into my brain
Need a bit of inspiration at the moment.
Thanks David & Craft & Vision for the freebie.
It’s just what I need to develop my skills.
Thank you David and everyone at Craft & Vision for the free ebook! I can use the inspiration!
Awesome work guys, thank you so much!
I’m getting an error when I try. “Cart Error: Free Checkout will be available again on December 2, 2011 @ 00:00 MST”
I got an error
it doesn’t work anymore
What an inspiring friend …..
I am touched by the images you put on your site …
I got the same error too
Great idea if it’s for real. I got the same error.
Great present, thanks a lot!
I hope the download will be back soon.
Ciao
Giovanni
“would you help us spread the love and tell others?”
Yes, I will
Ciao
I love reading your blog and I hope you’re having a great trip! Thanks also for the early gift! Will the download be available again? Did I miss something?
I got an error, too.
Got the error, too.
I was able to download this free e-book almost one week ago from an unrelated site. I was surprised to find it being released just today on Pixelated. Daivd, thanks for the book it was another good read and offered some very good advice.
David – what was the other site?
Thanks
M
Sorry everyone. We’re just working out an issue with our shopping cart. Stay tuned
Yes David O. and Martin, we can’t expect everyone to do the right thing. We asked them to remove it from their servers but I don’t believe they did. Please bear with us while we fix the error and you can download it from our site or through one of our affiliates. Thanks for your patience.
Wow! David, you really set the standard when it comes to photographic education. No that anybody here needs an additional incentive to purchase your flurry of e-books, but the concept of this latest e-book is really neat! Thx and happy holidays to you.
We’re back online! Go!
Yeah! Thanks so much.
Seems to be erroring on checkout again. Saying its currently unavalible.
10:55am PST. Sorry. Just working through yet another service interuption. I’m on it. Please check back in a bit.
link doesn’t work
Looks like we’ll have to wait a few hours. Sorry. I’ve removed the purchase buttons for now. When they re-appear it means you’ll be able to download it. Good times
David thank you so much! I always enjoy your books! I am looking forward to donwnload and read it.
David, Corwin, Craftina, thanks for your efforts!
Nah, still not working
thank you so much. What a fabulous holiday gift. Best to the whole team.
It’s available for download again. Problem fixed
Thank you so much! I love the e-books.
Thank you so much for the generous inspiration in many ways!
Thanks, this looks very interesting. A nice read for the coming dark winter days.
Nice book! I liked the most parts “Understanding the stages” by Alexandre Buisse and “The power of the moment” by Eli Reinholdtsen. Most of the other parts are pretty ordinary though…
HI folks, thanks for the comments. Sorry for the glitches, but we’re doing something we’ve never done before and having to work through some of this just wasn’t anticipated. Kudos to you for your patience, and to my team at home (I’m in Antarctica right now) for resolving it. I hope the book serves you well and takes you a little further on your journey.
David, you and your team are the best! The link worked perfectly this morning at 6:50 am EDT, just fyi.
It is so wonderful to see that you are out in the field again, I look forward to viewing your new work.
Your generosity of spirit is reflected throughout your blogs and the Craft and Vision website, thank you so much for sharing it!
Thanks David.
Thanks David!!
Thanks so much!
Davids books are some of the best I have read in years NEVER a bad decision to pick one up for a read FOR A PHOTOG THAT IS
THANK YOU!!! It’s fantastic – so many great photographers and great advice!
David, thanks so much.
thanks gud stuff. we will suggest to our students worldwide.
Pinna Infotech Support
Thanks! Nice little book, and nice to see what you all have been up to
Thank you so much…and also thank you for making the process of downloading the book so simple. Your grace is appreciated.
Digging in….
Thank you for this book. A well-balanced combination of helpful reminders and new ideas.
I particularly enjoyed “Understanding the Stages” by Alexandre Buisse – a very insightful article.
Awesome! It is amazing that you would produce such a beautiful and useful book that you’re giving away for free! I appreciate all of the info you’ve provided here.
Thank you for the free book. I can’t wait to read it. I know you said the timing wasn’t on purpose but I feel like the holidays have truly started now!
David, thank you for the free book! I picked up your bundled set of eBooks while I was on the site, too. Can’t wait to dig into them all. I also let a small group of photographers I lead here in the D.C area know about the freebie, and put in a plug for you, as well.
I hope you are staying warm and pain-free in Antactica. I know it still hurts, though.
Debbi
A beautiful e-book, glorious images and thoughtful, practical advice .. and at a price we can all afford! Thanks very much to all the contributors and the C&V team who made it happen.
Thank you!!! <3
WOW! Thank you! That’s so amazingly kind! Can’t wait to read it!
Thanks David! Just downloaded my free e-book and am really looking forward to diving into it.
I got mine; thanks so much, David. It looks great.
Unfortunately it doesn’t work.
error message since yesterday… tried many times but doenst work
[...] at all, even if you do not consider yourself a photographer, go check out this free e-book, Craft & Vision: 11 Ways to Improve Your Photography. It is a stunning book of amazing photos and tips on how to improve your photos. Now I am [...]
Just downloaded…only time for a quick look right now but from what I have seen ~ beautiful images, wonderful information. Thank You!
this is my first time ….could anyone, PLZ, suggest me how to download!
looking forwards your kind suggestion and guidelines
Deepak from
Nepal
Dave, your specialness is a blessing for us all – thank you and all of your friends and work mates ..very excited about your Antarctic notes! honourings!
Deepak,
I think their cart just gets overwhelmed. That would explain why people sometimes can get it and sometimes not. Once you make it through the checkout, there’s a download link.
Thankyou so much – Just downloaded my free e-book and I am really looking forward to read it …
Hi David:
Thank you so much for this PDF free book. I just downloaded it and will start reading it this evening.
Benjamin Franklin said, “When you are good to others, you are best to yourself.”
God Bless,
Omar.-
I just posted this on DPReview;
Hi All; For about a year now I have been following the career of David duChemin a young Canadian photographer. His blog tends to be full of good advice and his main message can be summed up up in a few words “It’s not about the gear its about your vision”.
He recently came out with a new eBook created with the help of 10 other young successful photographers who all have written brief essays on different themes.
And it is free.
I just finished reading and looking at my copy and found it interesting, helpful and inspiring. So I thought some of you might be interested.
http://www.pixelatedimage.com/…/blog/2011/12/craft-vision-the-free-ebook/
Dick K.
Thanks David,
I’ve been really inspired by your site & am so grateful to have come across VisionMongers. I look forward to getting stuck into this.
Thomas Williams
Thanks for posting this!
Any chance it’ll be available through the iPad app?
Thanks!
[...] I’ve just seen that David actually has a free ebook available from Craft and Vision. [...]
many many tanks,
Antonia
Thanks David & Craft and Vision!
[...] wüssten sie, wovon sie reden. Etwas mehr über das Buch und dessen Entstehungsgeschichte lesen Sie hier. [...]
Thank you very much! I so love the CaV-books – they’re really, really inspiring and helpful. Though they always leave me with a huge feeling of “faraway-sickness” – I really want to see all those wonder ful places for myself!
You made a thoughtful point but I wonder, what about the flipside?
[...] for all you photo enthusiasts. I’ve come across this info at David Duchemin’s blog, Pixelatedimage, as David is one of the minds behind Craft & Vision. Anyway, visit his blog or Craft & [...]