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Drawing The Eye
Creating Stronger Images Through Visual Mass
Drawing The Eye is about understanding and using the ways in which the eye reads a photograph in order to create more powerful images, and it’ll change the way you look at your craft. Broken into 4 parts, Drawing The Eye looks at this concept of visual mass, or visual pull, in concept, in camera, in post-processing, and then through creative exercises related to each of these sections.
Don’t let the egghead title fool you, this is not academia; it’s a real-world discussion about making images that are more powerful because they’re made with a fuller understanding of where the eye moves in an image, and how that understanding can change the way you shoot and process your images.
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Reviews and Comments
This is the ebook in this collection that I continually return to. David’s ability to distill compositional information into basic “rules”, or suggestions regarding what the human eye is drawn to is remarkable. I has changed the way I think about composing images for the better.
I found this to be a strong book. It leaves you with a lot to think about when composing your next photo. I loved the outline and thought process behind making the images in this book
Another great book. I especially like that it has exercises to do. I haven’t finished them but I have no doubt that they will improve my photography.
This book along with Chasing the Look has taught me more than half a dozen or so books I’ve bought through Amazon and has truly helped me with improving my photography. Thank you for providing us the instruction to continue our photographic education!
I’m a strong believer of good composition. Even though you can do lot of amazing stuffs in post production, I think you can only make a badly composed picture good not great. This book is interesting as it explains visual mass. Unlike some other books I read on composition & VM, this one is a much pleasant read … short & sweet. I like the pictures included along side the description to give additional insights. It’s a must read for anyone interested in learning about vm & how it affects your composition.
One thing I wish this ebook had is EXIF data like the previous two books. Nevertheless, it’s a must read.
Really great ebook with a great example of before/after to enhance the visual mass of your photography.
I can’t say enough about David’s books, both the paper kind and the “e” variety. I found his work at the perfect stage of my photography journey. That moment that your questions go from “how?” to “why?”. David has helped me move to the next level in my photos through his books. I have enjoyed them all and learned not only new techniques but more importantly new way of looking at and approaching my photos. Of all the great e-books Drawing the Eye is my favorite. Everyone else tells you how to compose your photos, but David’s explanation of WHY composing that way makes your photos better will bring a whole new level of understanding to your vision driven photographic journey. Highly Recommended.
One of the most difficult lessons that every aspiring photographer must learn is how to breathe soul into his photographs and make them more engaging and impressive. As “Chasing The Look” helps us in mastering the camera and light acting, “Drawing The Eye” is conceptually well organized book that takes us step forward in mastering the Visual Mass – the remarkable elements that draw viewers eyes through a given photo to easily perceive the intentions of photographers vision. Bunch of tips that divide the snapshot from the photograph, helpful for better composing and photo post processing. It took me half an hour to read this book, and more than three hours in watching other portfolios and studying the eye perception. “Drawing The Eye” represents a valuable brick in process of building and improving our skills on the way of learning the craft of light. Lesson that should not be avoided!!!
Excellent advice on understanding what the eye sees, how the mind interprets it, and how you can compose your photography to better communicate your intent.
Visual Mass is really a funny name to quite serious of an issue. Once you’ve masterd exposition and are ready to work on composition and visual impact of your photos, it definately is a high time to get yourself familiar with Visual Mass. Certainly there’s a number of basic rules about compostion, fundamental do’s and don’ts, and great many examples of strong and weak compostition available freely in www resources. Still it’s rather challenging to absorb understanding of strong composition and making it work in your own pictures without a system to connect all these elements. And the notion of Visual Mass – even if, as David rightly puts it, not a precise science – is a very strong one, and a very helpful one. It gives you a tool to anylyze photographs (your own and those of others) and in a way anylyze your own emotions about those photographs; it let’s you understand why a particular photo draws your attention, when others don’t.
Definately a must-read for any photographer serious about improving his work.
Okay, the first two e-books were filler compared to this one. It introduces concepts that truly stop you in your tracks and question your knowledge of composition. When you put a name (like “visual mass”) to a concept that felt intuitive but for some unknown reason, it becomes almost a law of physics for your photography. Take it and run with it.
I’ve found the concepts in this ebook to be invaluable. It has changed the way I frame and develop my images as well as how I look at other images.
Since reading this ebook, I’ve run across the concept of visual mass in a few other places, but it’s never been explained as clearly as here.
Visual mass is a concept I have never run across before. Visual mass is difficult to understand and certainly much harder to master but David has a way of making the complicated understandable. When I got to the examples of the camels, I began to understand visual mass. This is remarkable stuff.
I’m an aspiring photographer, and coming from a background in painting, I thought I had composition nailed fairly well. Wrong!
David has opened my eyes to new ways to think of composition based on what our eyes (and our hearts) are drawn to. Sticking to general principles rather than strick rules allows me to help find balance in my photos. It’s an ebook to review again and again.
Excellent primer, excellent price…
Loved it, not just another book on composition. Its practical and most of all effective if applied practically. Definitely worth the money.
you will find this book to bring you more information and inspiration than any you’ve read. David doesn’t say what you need to do, he shows you. This is his best so far. After reading it, I feel like a great photographer has just shared his secrets for a fine photograph, even showing me how to do it. Cant wait to get out and begin looking for visual mass.
Before I say anything about the contents of this book, I’ll just state a couple of things. One, it’s a pdf, meaning it’s a digital file, not a physical book. Second, it’s $5 US. Now even if it were a shitty book and David duChemin had no idea what he was talking about, spending $5 is not a big deal considering the $1000′s of dollars you have already spent on photography equipment. Luckily, Drawing The Eye is not a shitty book and is worth the whole $5 and more and is probably much better than all those other generic photography books which emphasize equipment and brands over substance and theory behind image making. The main concept of the book is Visual Mass which is basically about taking photos that draw or pull the eye of the viewer to interesting aspects of your photograph. The book is broken down into four simple parts over 33 pages which means it’s informative without the bloat.
‘Drawing The Eye’ reminds me a lot of Michael Freeman’s book ‘The Photographer’s Eye’, (read my review) not necessarily in content as Freeman is a little more articulate but definitely style, they also both have fantastic photos and examples, they are easy to read and easy to understand (duChemin more so) and most importantly, they don’t talk about equipment and brands. duChemin has just released a new ebook which he sees as a companion to Drawing The Eye called ‘Chasing The Look’ which I look forward to reading.
Visual Mass and how to draw the consumer of your image to your story, perspective or intent is what this is all about! Changing Point of View(POV), Darkroom(post processing), and how you capture the moment is what David helps us understand. I’m going to have to buy WITHIN THE FRAME!
“We operate by visual clues” and David shows you how to operate these clues as you “create photographs”. A great read or follow up to his book, WITHIN THE FRAME.
Drawing the Eye is a crash course in composition and the concept of visual mass. It even covers some post-processing concepts. t’s a short book, but I think this is one of the most valuable Craft & Vision books available.
This eBook conveys the concept of visual mass in such a way that it makes perfect sense. I just read a 300 page book on design that doesn’t even come close to being as concise and clear about visual mass as this eBook does. Worth every penny!
Interesting book, albeit not as much an eye-opener as his ’10′, ’10 more’ and ‘Chasing the Look’. The concept/idea of visual mass is I believe familiar to most photographers who’ve been around for some time. The most interesting part of it for me – and why I’d still don’t regret buying it instead of a latté – is the example on how the idea of visual mass/drawing the eye was applied in post-processing. I did change my approach to editing my pictures as a result, and I really look forward to get more of that in the upcoming ‘Vision and Voice’…
Great book it really helped me think about the photos I was taking and what I was trying to say with them
Learning how to make an eye move around a photograph in a pleasing way is critical to making great images rather than mediocre ones. The side-by-side examples are particularly good for showing how this works. Of all the eBooks Craft and Vision have put out this is the one that had the most rapid effect on my photography. It is very well thought out, explained and layered for a short and easy read. Whenever I have got stuck in a rut with making an image this is the one I return to to re-examine the fundamentals.
As an amateur, I found this glimpse into the mind of a professional photographer to be really helpful. In it, David does a great job of explaining the concept of visual mass by taking some of his own pictures and illustrating what he did (either in-camera or in post) to make it into a much more compelling picture. Being able to see the progression of the picture along the way really helped me to visualize exactly what goes into strong composition. I’d encourage you to take a look at this e-book. The pictures alone are worth the money, and the instruction you receive is even more valuable.
Great subject for the next full-length book, David. The concept of visual mass is one of the things to consider while composing your shot and this ebook will give your a head start.
This ebook provides practical tips and inspiration for finding ways of making your images more engaging. But most of all it is full of simple tips that you can think about everytime you are composing a shot. I can’t help but think about the simple ideas presented in this ebook everytime i look at my own and other photographs. These are simple concepts for photography, but for an amateur like me with alot to learn it makes the whole concept alot clearer
A crystallizing concept in a wonderfully written manner. This book does a great job explaining a fuzzy concept and with inspirational and beautiful images. Great work.
Of all the Craft&Vision eBooks, Drawing The Eye really connected with me in ways no other eBooks did. David explains Visual Mass in a wonderful way, showing how and why he composed these images the way he did. I highly recommend this one!
This book in particular is a great companion piece to WITHIN THE FRAME. If you liked that book, and of course you did, you’ll feel right at home reading this one.
A must read, combining heaps of teaching with a ton of inspiration.
Just bought this ebook, and I can’t wait to read through it. I think we can all use a bit of inspiration sometimes.
I bought this ebook this past winter when I was feeling very uninspired and sick of the snow/grey. It explained why people are intuitively drawn to certain areas of a photograph which taught me where I should focus. Mostly I learned to honour where I am naturally drawn and emphasizing that point while excluding things that distract. Another beautiful ebook by David!
Is the concept of Visual mass too vague for you? Well, this eBook can help you understand it. David explains us what is visual mass and how it can serve an image for the better. He does a great job of demonstrating how the position of objects in a photograph influence things like balance. I loved it.
Highly recommended.