IMPORTANT! Please read:

• In order to read this book you will need a device capable of displaying PDF documents. If you are not sure how to open PDF documents, please research it before purchasing this e-book. We are unable to provide technical support.

• Due to the nature of a digital product, we do not offer refunds on digital purchases.

• This PDF e-Book is intended for electronic reading only and is not printable.

• File size: ~23MB

• Number of pages: 102

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Future Hindsight is the idea (first introduced in Guy’s book, Another Day Not Wasted) of living and creating such that you consider with every choice you make what you might someday, looking back, regret not having done or at least attempted to do.

The aim of future hindsight is to live life as meaningfully as you can, to ensure that your choices are purposeful steps on a journey toward self-discovery and getting the most out of the short time you get to spend on this Earth as living, conscious human being.

The 14 essays in this e-book relate some of Guy’s experiences and thoughts ensuing from the attitude of future hindsight—experiences and thoughts he would never have had if he did not choose to live and work according to his own nature, sometimes in defiance of conventions and in the face of risk.

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If you’ve read any of Guy’s books, you already have some understanding of his topics and style. In previous writings, insights into the man himself are often absent or spare. Not in this one. This is perhaps some of Guy’s deepest and finest writing, and possibly the most he’s ever bared himself in print.

You are now holding an extraordinary book—one that masterfully intertwines photography, science, music, philosophy, psychology, and the natural world. It is authentic, candid, and deeply insightful. Ultimately, it serves as a guide to help others foster the right mindset for creating art, enriching life, and thriving as a creative individual in an increasingly complex world.

—Michael E. Gordon, photographer

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Guy Tal has done it again! With his ninth title, in Future Hindsights, Guy brings longtime readers the wisdom, brilliance, and philosophical depth we’ve come to love from his writings. This time, though, he offers fresh, candid, and deeply personal insights. Thought-provoking and beautifully written, this is arguably Guy’s most intimate, honest, and empowering collection of essays yet. If you’ve ever been inspired by Guy’s work—or if your present self is searching for a way to live with more courage, creativity, and purpose—this book will spark a fire within your soul. Read this! Your future self will thank you for it.

—Colleen Miniuk, fellow creative, instructor, and author of So Said the River: Life, Loss, and Pie on the Colorado

IMPORTANT! Please read:

• When you complete your purchase, you will receive a link to a ZIP file containing the book in 2 formats (PDF and EPUB). Please make sure you know how to open at least one of these versions on your computer or reading device. We are unable to provide technical support.

• Due to the nature of a digital product, we do not offer refunds on digital purchases.

• These files are intended for electronic reading and are not printable.

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Be Extraordinary: Philosophical Advice for Photographic and Other Artists

An inspiring, educational, and practical book about philosophy and art, and finding a personally meaningful life.

Teacher, philosopher, and author Guy Tal has written several best-selling books on photography, creativity, and expression. While it would be understandable to label Guy a “photographer,” it is more accurate to call him a philosopher and artist who has forged a creative life on his own terms: a life shaped by his love of nature, his interest in science and philosophy, his individualistic temperament, and his desire to create art that is expressive and significant in the ways most meaningful to him.

In Be Extraordinary: Philosophical Advice for Photographic and Other Artists, Guy shares his knowledge of philosophy and art, then offers advice on how to implement it into your own work. In the first part, “Foundations,” Guy lays out a conceptual framework for the book with short essays about philosophy and art. In the second part, “Practical Advice,” he offers a series of brief essays aiming to enable and empower you to apply the foundational philosophies to your own life and work. Together, the two parts demonstrate how Guy has carefully fashioned his own perspective on philosophy, art, and life, and offer you a set of tools for finding your own path.

This is not a how-to book of techniques and tips. The goal of the book is to make you think, to pose hard questions, to challenge you to question common beliefs and attitudes, to nudge you out of your comfort zone, and to help you find the courage to become who you—and only you—are. And in so doing, to create a life and art that is meaningful in the deepest ways that life and art can be meaningful, which is to say: meaningful to you.

IMPORTANT! Please read:

• When you complete your purchase, you will receive a link to a ZIP file containing the book in 3 formats (PDF, EPUB, and MOBI). Please make sure you know how to open at least one of these versions on your computer or reading device. We are unable to provide technical support.

• Due to the nature of a digital product, we do not offer refunds on digital purchases.

• These files are intended for electronic reading and are not printable.

A deeper look at the creativity, art, expression, craft, and philosophy of landscape photography.

More Than a Rock, 2nd Edition is a passionate and personal book about creativity and expression. In this series of over 70 brief essays, photographer and teacher Guy Tal shares his thoughts and experiences as an artist who seeks to express more in his images than the mere appearance of the subject portrayed. Following up on the success of the first edition, this revised edition contains updated imagery, a new essay in each of the book’s four sections—Art, Craft, Experiences, and Meditations—and is presented in a beautiful hardcover format.

Tal makes an argument to consider creative landscape photography—expressing something of the photographer’s conception through the use of natural aesthetics—as a form of visual art that is distinct from the mere representation of beautiful natural scenes. Tal covers topics such as the art of photography, approaches to landscape photography, and the experiences of a working photographic artist. His essays also include reflections on nature and man’s place in it, living a meaningful life, and living as an artist in today’s world.

The book is decidedly non-technical and focuses on philosophy, nature, and visual expression. It was written for those photographers with a passion and interest in creative photography. Anyone who is pursuing their work as art, is in need of inspiration, or is interested in the writings of a full-time working photographic artist will benefit from reading this book. The book is visually punctuated with Tal’s inspiring and breathtaking photography.

“Some images look like things, while others feel like things; some images are of things, while others are about things. A creative image is not a record of a scene nor a substitute for a real experience. Rather, it is an experience in itself—an aesthetic experience—something new that the artist has given the world, rather than a contrived view of something that already existed independent of them.”

—Guy Tal

“The medium of photography has a long tradition of practitioners who were not only masterful photographers, but were also insightful and thoughtful writers—the thinking man’s photographers. Among them we find such greats as John Szarkowski, Minor White, Bill Jay, and Robert Adams. It is no exaggeration to include Guy Tal on this esteemed list.”

— From the Foreword, by Chuck Kimmerle

IMPORTANT! Please read:

• In order to read this book you will need a device capable of displaying PDF documents. If you are not sure how to open PDF documents, please research it before purchasing this product. We are unable to provide technical support.

• If you plan to open this document on a tablet, we recommend that you download it to a computer first, then synchronize to your device. Downloading directly to a tablet is not recommended.

• Due to the nature of a digital product, we do not offer refunds on digital purchases.

• This PDF E-Book is intended for electronic reading and is not printable.

• File size: 20.6 MB

Reflecting on his years after leaving a lucrative but unsatisfying career to become a full-time creative photographer, writer, and wilderness explorer, Guy Tal shares with readers some of the experiences and lessons that marked his journey. Building on the success of his earlier book, More Than a Rock (now out in a second edition), Guy offers readers yet deeper insights into his life as an independent artist, his thoughts about photography as a form of art and as a means to a richer and more rewarding life, and his intimate relationship with nature and with his beloved desert—The Colorado Plateau.

“Many times since beginning my journey as a creative artist and outdoor explorer,” Tal writes, “especially in the evening hours of satisfying days, the thought naturally emerged in my mind: another day not wasted.”

The book is not intended as a guide to either photography or any particular place. It is decidedly non-technical and focuses on Tal’s philosophy, experiences, and the pursuit of photography as a form of creative and self-expressive art. The book contains 36 essays of varying lengths and is illustrated with Tal’s inspiring and breathtaking photography.

IMPORTANT! Please read:

• When you complete your purchase, you will receive a link to a ZIP file containing the book in 3 formats (PDF, EPUB, and MOBI). Please make sure you know how to open at least one of these versions on your computer or reading device. We are unable to provide technical support.

• Due to the nature of a digital product, we do not offer refunds on digital purchases.

• These files are intended for electronic reading and are not printable.

A deeply thoughtful and inspiring collection of essays about visual expression, art, creativity, and a life in photography

Photographer, teacher, and author Guy Tal has been photographing the landscape for more than 30 years, and in that time he has also been consistently contributing to the literature of photography, writing not about the technical aspects of the photograph—the gear, the exposure details, the “secrets to getting a great shot”—but about the deeper topics of visual expression, creativity, art, and life.

Building on the legacy of his previous best-selling books More Than a Rock and Another Day Not Wasted, as well as his work as a regular contributor to LensWork and On Landscape magazines, The Interior Landscape is a collection of more than 60 brief essays, packaged in a beautiful hardcover format and illustrated throughout with Guy’s stunning photography.

Organized into four parts, Guy discusses:

• Creativity and expression as the most significant aspects of making art

• The controversial and tenuous relationship between photography (by design a medium for objective representation) and art (by definition the subjective expressions of the imagination of artists)

• How he has formed a relationship with, and found meaning in, the natural landscape, and how he expresses these meanings in his photographs

• Lessons learned from more than three decades of practicing expressive landscape photography

The Interior Landscape is for anyone interested in, as the title suggests, turning inward to explore creativity, art, expression, and the landscape. It is sure to illuminate, educate, and inspire you on your photographic journey.

IMPORTANT! Please read:

• When you complete your purchase, you will receive a link to a ZIP file containing the book in 3 formats (PDF, EPUB, and MOBI). Please make sure you know how to open at least one of these versions on your computer or reading device. We are unable to provide technical support.

• Due to the nature of a digital product, we do not offer refunds on digital purchases.

• These files are intended for electronic reading and are not printable.

You are not offering testimony to the existence of something, you are bringing something into existence—something that did not exist before, and that would not exist if it were not for you. ~Guy Tal

The first step to creating an expressive photograph happens before you even click the shutter: it is the act of visualizing an image in your mind’s eye. Once composed and captured, the data recorded by the camera is then transformed in processing to match the visualized image.

To become a better expressive photographer means, among other things, to become a better visualizer. This requires more than just technical skill, but also an understanding of what art is, what it means to be an artist, and how to translate your thoughts, feelings, and experiences into visual creations.

In The Landscape Photographer’s Guide to Photoshop: A Visualization-Driven Workflow, Guy Tal provides a broad theoretical foundation for digital landscape photography as an expressive visual art, and for understanding how art and technology come together to serve your creative purpose. He then offers a roadmap for a visualization-driven approach to processing images in Photoshop.

Topics include:

• An overview of the history of art and of photography as art

• A deeper understanding of creativity and visualization, and of the technical underpinnings of digital imaging

• Techniques to effectively apply visualization in creating and processing your images

• How to perform “gap analysis” to identify the gaps between the image at any point in time and the desired outcome

• How to convert your RAW files using Adobe Camera Raw prior to editing in Photoshop

• How best to employ many of Photoshop’s tools and features

• How to leverage Layers and Masks to accomplish your visualized results

• How to control and adjust contrast, color, and tone

• Image blending techniques to extend dynamic range and for focus stacking

• Processing strategies for black-and-white conversions, including toning your images

• Printing and other output techniques including sizing, sharpening, noise reduction, and color management

Bringing all of these techniques together, Guy presents a detailed case study, beginning with his initial visualization for the final image and working through his processing steps from RAW conversion to the final print.

IMPORTANT! Please read:

• In order to read this book you will need a device capable of displaying PDF documents. If you are not sure how to open PDF documents, please research it before purchasing this product. We are unable to provide technical support.

• If you plan to open this document on a tablet, we recommend that you download it to a computer first, then synchronize to your device. Downloading directly to a tablet is not recommended.

• Due to the nature of a digital product, we do not offer refunds on digital purchases.

• This PDF E-Book is intended for electronic reading and is not printable.

• File size: 41.6 MB

Originally published in 2011, this is one of Guy’s first E-Books. Now offered for sale again, a decade after its original publication.

The Colorado Plateau is a unique and diverse desert region in the Southwestern United States. It is a place rich in human and natural history, as well as some of the most dramatic scenery anywhere on Earth.

This book contains a large portfolio of Guy's unique images of the Plateau, where he lives, as well as several essays and musings about the place. It is a visual and emotional tribute to a place like no other.

From the book’s introduction:

“This is a book about a place. It is not a guide book or a history book. It is not meant to be a reference or a work of fiction. It is a collection of intimate vignettes and memorable glimpses into my ongoing love affair with the desert that has become my home. Who knew one could fall in love with rocks, share stories with trees and rivers and ghosts, and find meaning in the songs of coyotes, the hushed wing beats of ravens, or ancient silences?”