Blog Archives
The Creative Way
The Creative Way is a compact, image-driven portrait of Steven B. Wills as a photographer and digital artist, tracing how his work grows out of nature, travel, memory, illness, recovery, grief, and curiosity. The book moves between biographical reflection and visual catalog, showing Wills’s fondness for landscapes, coastal scenes, wildlife, skyscapes, urban structures, abstract color experiments, and images. What emerges is less a conventional art book than a personal archive of creative momentum, where a phone camera, photo-editing apps, and a searching eye become tools for turning ordinary sights into bright, emotionally charged images.
What I appreciated most was the sincerity running through the book. There’s something quietly moving about the way Wills frames creativity as a way of surviving and noticing. The section on Bodie structures stayed with me because the ghost town’s “arrested decay” feels like a natural extension of the book’s deeper ideas about resilience and remembrance. The image made for a friend who passed away in May adds a tender human ache to the collection, while the self-portrait near the end gives the whole project a disarming intimacy. I liked that the book doesn’t try to hide the artist behind polish. It lets us see the maker, the process, the experiments, and the emotional weather behind the images.
The writing is plainspoken, sometimes repetitive, and occasionally reads more like notes for a curated portfolio than a finished narrative. That looseness has its own charm. The language keeps circling back to nature, digital tools, healing, and transformation, and those repetitions begin to feel like the book’s heartbeat. The ideas are strongest when they’re paired with the art itself: the red-and-black image generated from two colors, the vivid lighthouse with its stained-glass intensity, the bear in the canoe beside the deer, the moody coastal and moonlit scenes. I found the mix of photography, filters, and AI both intriguing and a little uneven, but that unevenness also makes the book feel alive. It’s an artist’s workshop with the door left open.
I came away from The Creative Way feeling that I had spent time with someone who genuinely needs to create, not for spectacle, but for steadiness, wonder, and connection. The book is imperfect in structure, but generous in spirit, and its best moments carry a warm sense of gratitude for beauty wherever it appears. I’d recommend it to readers who enjoy personal art collections, digital photography, outsider art, nature-inspired imagery, and creative journeys shaped by resilience and emotional honesty.
Pages: 32 | ASIN : B0GR1ZQL68
Using Japanese Paper for Digital Printing of Photographs
You may never understand the beauty of photography until you read Using Japanese Paper for Digital Printing of Photographs by Carl-Evert Jonsson. Carl-Evert Jonsson writes extensively on photography, focusing on Japanese paper for the digital printing of photographs. The author is intentional in his explanations and describes every detail for those not familiar with Washi.
The images in Carl-Evert Jonsson’s book tell a compelling story. The pictures are stunning, distinct, and aesthetically pleasing. The photos are classed into four groups; Places, Persons, Varia, and Mixed. Each of these categories tells a unique story that the reader connects with. I loved going through the images under Persons as one can see the different features in humans and how individual people are. Images of places are striking because of the locations the author drew his inspiration from. Varia and Mixed pictures are also eye-catching and impactful.
One of the best things about this book is that the author uses few words in the description and leaves the reader to form an opinion on the images without being influenced. Under the Mixed category, the image displaying the Notre Dame de Paris and the Vehicle. Brown ochre, primary blue was my favorite. Varia had a lot of impressive figures, but the image displayed Egg oil x1. Underneath: yellow ochre subjects were my best. The sense of illusion when one looks at the picture is satisfying. It feels authentic for a minute, then one feels a certain sense of imagination the next minute.
Carl-Evert Jonsson shares a personal touch throughout the book. Anyone reading this book will appreciate the author more as they keep flipping the pages. I loved reading the preface as the author gives a little background information about himself and the book. Carl-Evert Jonsson’s story is fascinating and increases one’s interest in photography. The author also enlightens the reader on techniques for digitally printing photographs on Japanese paper in the introduction. The short text was helpful, especially to readers that may not have been familiar with different photography techniques. The modest way of expounding on concepts and creativity displayed by the author is inspiring enough for one to delve into photography and related subjects.
Using Japanese Paper for Digital Printing of Photographs is a captivating book that photography students, lovers of nature, and individuals who fancy capturing objects and printing them will love. Any photography enthusiast will appreciate this work, especially the content under Places and Persons. Every image under this category was unique in its own way.
Pages: 54 | ASIN : B0998MKMTD
