A book about the craft of camera-using and the creative struggle of picture-making.

Learning how a camera works is not difficult. Once you understand how to focus and expose, the rest are details. So why is it such a challenge to make photographs that feel like they do what we hope for? Could it be we're asking the camera to do the work that all along has been ours to figure out? Is it possible we've been thinking too much about the camera and not enough about our own creativity? In an industry that obsesses over the gear and all too often ignores the deeper questions around creativity and expression, this should come as no surprise.

It’s true, the camera sees differently than we do. As our creative collaborator it can do things that we simply cannot. It can see much faster (1/8000 of a second) and much slower (8 seconds, or 8 minutes) than we can. It can cut the light in half, or double it. It can magnify, compress, and otherwise transform our field of view through lens and aperture choices. Learning to see as the camera does is, itself, an exercise in creative thinking and imagination.

The journey of mastering this craft is not so much about bending the camera to our will, but working with the many different ways the camera is able to see the world in order to create photographs that express the way we see and feel about it. That effort is more creative than it is technical. Crucially, this journey is also about learning to give ourselves the permission to create photographs that are truly our own, to risk and experiment, and to explore and play. Too often we hold ourselves back.

In Light, Space, and Time, photographer, teacher, and author David duChemin helps you learn to look in the same way as the camera does, and to think in the same language as the camera speaks. In 20 powerful essays, and featuring more than 100 beautiful photographs, David explores the place of the human behind the camera in the act of picture making, and he does so with the same inspiring heart, soul, and voice that he has brought to his previous best-selling books. Books that teach not only how to make photographs, but how to think like a photographer. Throughout the book, David encourages you to move beyond the functions of your camera to embrace the creative choices those functions make possible. This exploration provides new frameworks for thinking about your decisions, presents new ways to see and look, raises new questions about the challenges we face in being creative, and offers new answers as you carve out your own unique path forward. Most importantly, David will inspire you to head out with your camera and play with the possibilities held by every intersection of light, space, and time that eventually becomes a photograph.

The result of all this? Freedom. Freedom to find new ways of wrestling with the challenges we all face when collaborating with the camera to make something that is truly our own. Freedom to embrace your fundamental creative nature, to overcome the fear of trying something new. Freedom to work as an artist more at ease with a process that's inherently messy. And freedom to make the kinds of photographs you’ve always wanted to create.

Table of Contents

01 The Mind of the Photographer

02 Light, Space, and Time

03 Interesting Perceptions

04 Repetition, Risk, and Reward

05 Reaction and Response

06 The Visual and the Visceral

07 Art and Artifice

08 The Seduction of Subject

09 The Freedom of Flow

10 We’re All Missing Something

11 The Power and Possibility of Constraint

12 Comparison and Creativity

13 Beyond the Settings

14 In Praise of Luck

15 Talent or Time?

16 Ever Forward

17 Imposters and Improvisers

18 Over the Shoulders of Giants

19 Starts and Stops

20 Find Your Magic

David duChemin is a world and humanitarian assignment photographer, best-selling author, and international workshop leader whose spirit of adventure fuels his fire to create and share. Based in Vancouver, Canada, David chases compelling images on all seven continents. When on assignment, David creates powerful photographs that convey the hope and dignity of children, the vulnerable, and the oppressed for the international NGO community. When creating the art he so passionately shares, David strives to capture the beauty of the natural world. Find David online at davidduchemin.com.

David duChemin's profile page

“I’ve always been a big fan of David’s work. I don’t just mean his undeniably beautiful imagery which celebrates the natural world, but perhaps more especially his thoughtful musings on the creative process. He is a photographer who thinks long and deeply about the ‘why’ behind every click of the shutter, and through his many books he has dedicated himself to sharing his hard-won wisdom with those of us who follow in his wake. In my opinion, Light, Space & Time is David’s best work yet. If you’re after quick photography tips to help you get to grips with the technical side of your camera, then this isn’t the book for you. However, if you’re looking for images to inspire you, and prose which may just make you a better, more intentional artist with the camera you have in your hand, then you’ve come to the right place.”
—Sean Tucker, author of The Meaning in the Making

“Very few photographers articulate their craft, and fewer still rise above the mechanics or the well-worn themes. David is not only one of the small elite, but in this lovely book, graced with his very fine (and it seems mainly new) images, uses his considerable writing skills to enthuse and inspire others—and makes a coherent presentation of the elusive magic that we all know is at the heart of photography.”
—Michael Freeman, author of The Photographer's Eye