The 7 Books That Changed My Photography Journey
PLUS: New $300 December Contest!
I’ve shared my favourite photo books in the past. These visual manuscripts that provide sparks of inspiration for my creative work. This week, I’m gonna pivot to traditional books. I’m not the type to blast through one book after the next. Reading comes to me in waves, often to satiate something happening in my life. To me, I look to books to provide some sort of insight that I can turn into an inflection point in my journey.
However, lately I find myself reading less and less new books. Instead, I go back to books that I really enjoyed and tackle them again. In doing so, I find myself absorbing more of the lessons and experiencing these elevated upticks to my work. This week, I want to share with you the seven books that I keep coming back to.
Systems for Productivity
Getting Things Done by David Allen
So much of being a photographer can be simply described as getting things done. And this is the book that I credit the most for changing the trajectory of my work. To describe it as a self-help would be a massive understatement. This book is a template to creating a system for, as the name suggests, getting things done. David goes into extreme detail on how to craft an approach to triaging and completing tasks. What I love most about this book is that it skips the fluff.
A lot of productivity systems are unnecessarily complex. They try to make you *feel* like you’re getting things done but you end spending more time managing the system itself than completing tasks. It’s wasteful. Getting Things Done is about changing your approach so can check things off your list and keep moving forward.
Understanding Our Journey Here
Sapiens: A Brief History of Time by Yuval Noah Harari
If you’re asking me, to be a photographer, you need to understand humanity. To understand humanity, you need to learn about the human journey. And this book is a great place to start. Think of Sapiens as a primer on how we got here.
Yuval outlines a convincing argument on how Homo sapiens came to rule this planet through language, agriculture, science, and more. Maybe it’s just me, but at times this book reads like a thriller. Moving from chapter to chapter, you start to uncover these clues that reveal a much bigger picture. In the end, you walk away with a deeper connection to humanity as a whole.
Growth Mindset
The Almanack of Naval Ravikant by Eric Jorgensen
Naval Ravikant is an entrepreneur, investor, and thought leader. This book culminates some of his most powerful lessons on his three keys to a fulfilling life: health, wealth, and freedom. At first, I thought this was a grift. A way to just take advantage of unsuspecting readers in search of direction. But I gave the book a shot and I was genuinely surprised.
Most photographers suck at finances, which in turn can have an impact on their health and happiness. And this very short read that delivers succinct thoughts on wealth creation, inner peace, and developing leverage. It’s written in very direct manner, so you don’t feel like you’re getting all this fatty exposition for no reason. This book is just a collection of thoughts that almost read like poetry.
Respect for the Craft
The Creative Act by Rick Rubin
This book is a collection of brief but powerful thoughts that all tie together to assert that creativity is a way of life. It is not something that some people are born with while others are not. It is a practice. And this book looks to dive deep into the practice in an effort to unlock your creative potential.
I loved every page of this book. It really spoke to my perspective of photography, that it is a craft that you work on every chance you get. What I really appreciated about this book is that I could read one passage and just stop to let it marinate. Taking one or two days to just let the ideas manifest into action. Look, I know that might sound a little out there for some of you. But if you find that your creativity has a lot of ups and downs to it, give this book a read.
Speaking to an Audience
This Is Marketing by Seth Godin
A lot of photography is storytelling. Marketing is storytelling plus commerce. Now, you may not be looking to sell your work, but understanding marketing can have these tangential benefits to your entire journey. And this is the book I recommend most for people that never went to school for marketing. Seth is a master in the marketing space and this book delivers an easy-to-read experience that will arm you with the foundational knowledge on how to think about marketing as a whole.
I see so many young people that believe marketing is Instagram reels and copying TikTok trends. They spend all this time an energy making a creative piece of content with the hopes of going viral. And when 99% don’t, they’re left confused as to why their work isn’t taking off. Marketing is more than content! And this book gives you the explanation how.
Building Discipline
This was the first book I read when the COVID shutdowns began and it was like pouring kerosene on a fire. You see, at this point I already felt like I was a productive person. Not that I was always busy, but I was always—like the first book implies—getting things done. But this book took it further. While I thought I had a good system before, what this book gave me is building support around that entire system so that I could make time for more personal priorities like health and family.
It also reminded me how to avoid the pitfalls of unhealthy habits. I would always talk about a game of inches and moving the needle. This book spoke to me by underscoring that. Really locking into the power of small, incremental actions to create big, long-lasting change. This book also empowered me to further my education and arm myself with the knowledge to work on ever bigger projects. So for those of you that aspire to do big things with your photography, I encourage you to give this book a read.
Exploring Fear
No Death, No Fear by Thich Nhat Hanh
I heard this book recommendation from a podcast over a decade ago. The speaker talked about all the existential concerns they wrestled with and how this book helped to ease those fears. The speaker would talk about overthinking, imagining of hypothetical outcomes, and a general uneasiness of where things were going. Shit, at the time I felt like he was describing me. So, I gave this book a read.
What No Death, No Fear does is demystifies these concepts of death and embraces how interconnected everything is. Sure, it sounds a little morbid but it reads incredibly light. With every chapter, you garner more holistic understanding of our phases in life. As a result, you start to develop a little more inner peace. And you start to get this ability to confront your fears from in an overt way by looking at your thoughts in a pragmatic way. In doing so, you start to realize things aren’t as bad as it seems. In fact, you have the answers to tackle the problem in front of you. And death? Well, if that ever comes, it’ll be another phase of your life. Not the end.
An Acquired Taste
So, this list is entirely non-fiction and definitely covers a wide range of subjects. Perhaps not the most inspiring you’ll come across. But like I mentioned earlier, these are the reads that had a profound impact on my life. And these are the books that I keep coming back to.
Photography, if I’m being honest, isn’t a lot of time pressing a shutter button. It’s a sprawling series of patterned behaviours that put us in a position to press that shutter when it matters most. What these books have taught me is that even the tiniest adjustments to these behaviours can bring lasting changes in our creative journey.
Previous Favourites
November Contest Winner
Congratulations to the winner of last month’s contest:
Pasha C.
You’ll receive an email directly from me on receiving your prize. Enjoy!
New December Contest!
Each month, I’ll be giving away a $300 gift card to the Moment Shop where the winner can save big on their next camera, lens, bag, or courses. Moment has so many creative products to choose from and $300 can absolutely make for a better deal.
How am I picking the winner? All you have to do is be a free member of this community and leave a comment on this post. As with every contest, I’ll be randomly picking one person, confirming they meet the requirements and contacting them directly before announcing the winner publicly.
Once again, this contest is void where prohibited by law. Good luck!
My thanks to the team at Moment! Not only for this contest but for being the longest supporter of my work online. They’re a lean team of passionate creators that truly believe in supporting other creatives on their journey. Whether it’s a new camera, lens, workshop, or just some great articles, visit ShopMoment.com today.
What’s Next?
I’m preparing for an expedition to a place that I never imagined I would be visiting. And I’ll be going with some friends with the sole purpose of creating some incredible stories. Leaving the winters of Toronto to go somewhere even colder was not something I had in my bingo card this year. But some opportunities you just can’t turn down.
GB
Wonderful list of books. Have you read Sean Tucker’s book “The Meaning in the Making”?
Well, there went a few dollars to Amazon. Thank you for the recommendations! I've actually listened to The Creative Act using Audible and found it completely liberating. I picked up a few more from your recommendations today.