The Art of Photography: A Celebration of Thomas Truernauer's Work

I want to start by saying that I've been thoroughly enjoying this book, which is a collection of photographs by Thomas Truernauer. What struck me first was how Idealistic and utopian the landscapes depicted in these images are. They're completely devoid of humanity, and yet, they're really wonderful. I think what I appreciate most about Thomas's work is the thought he puts into pairing the images. Traditionally, when you look at photo books, images are printed on one side and left blank on the other. But Thomas has done something really excellent here - he's put more thought into the pairing of these images so that they work together beautifully if displayed next to each other.

This is especially evident in some of the night shots I've seen. Typically, when you look at photo books, those are the ones that get printed on the right-hand side and left blank. But Thomas has done something really clever here by putting more images in and getting more bang for your buck. If he's going to do a print-on-demand book like Blurb, he wants to make sure the images are working together to create a cohesive whole. And I think he's succeeded beautifully.

There are some really wonderful people shots in this book too. One of my favorites is a shot with a Ferris wheel - not actually a Ferris wheel, but a carousel. It's just a beautiful work of art and I love the way it's been captured by Thomas. Another great example is a photo of Adrianne Stortz, who is someone I featured in one of our YouTube channels. Adrienne is a talented chef and food blogger who creates delicious healthy recipes. She sent me a really sweet thank-you note with a printed batch of asparagus on the inside - it was a beautiful gesture that made my day.

The card itself is even more special because it's actually made of wood. I've never seen anything like that before, and it's just so cool. Adrienne clearly put a lot of thought into this gift, and I appreciate that she would take the time to do something so unique. If you're interested in cooking or healthy recipes, Adrianne is definitely someone to check out - her show "exoexo cooks" is really great.

Overall, I want to thank everybody who sent their work to me for Thomas Truernauer's book. It was a really special surprise, and it means a lot to me that people are inspired by The Art of Photography. As an artist and filmmaker, there's nothing more rewarding than seeing your work being made by others and knowing that it's resonating with audiences.

Finally, I want to give a shout-out to Adrienne Stortz again for sending such a beautiful gift my way. If you guys are interested in seeing more of her work or learning about alternative healthy recipes, be sure to check out her show "exoexo cooks" and follow her on social media - she's really talented and I think you'll love what you see.

If you like this episode of The Art of Photography, remember to hit the like button and share it with your friends. And don't forget to subscribe to our channel so you'll always be up-to-date with the latest and greatest videos as they come out. We're doing about three a week now, which is a lot but I'm having a lot of fun with the show.

"WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: enwhat's up everybody Ted Forbes welcome back to the Art of Photography and we're going to do something a little bit different today we're going to do a little mailbag and about two weeks ago I went to go check my PO Box one day and I had three packages in there and they were all from people who watched the show that were sharing their work with me I have two books and a print and I thought this was really cool and I emailed everybody and asked if I could share it on the show and everybody was really excited about it and this is some really amazing stuff and I'm really excited about this first up I have a book and this was sent to me by Eduardo Torres and Eduardo and I'm met at the very first Art of Photography Meetup we ever did which was in London in I guess 2009 and Eduardo and I have been friends on Facebook and we've kept up here and there over the years and he recently contacted me and I actually knew this was coming and he said that he had finished a portfolio book on some of the portraits that he does and wanted to share it with me and I'm going to come back to it in a second but I love the cover on this um it's just a very simple book it's very elegant and he actually signed it and numbered each one of these so it's an addition of 50 and this is number seven of 50 and so I thought that was really cool but Eduardo and I am familiar with his work uh because we kept up online and he has a wonderful style he shoots mainly portraits of women and he does these in black and white and color and does some really beautiful portraits and I think that you know they're very uh kind of a they give a nod to you know Rembrandt and some of the past Master painting types of things but I think what makes Eduardo's work interesting to me at least is his wonderful sense of color which I think is outstanding he uses these wonderful muted tones uh sometimes he does work in black and white and I love the poses I love the cropping on some of these I think they're really amazing and he just does an outstanding job I also like the fact that he shoots um a very contemporary look to his portraits but rather than seeing women that are made up or kind of phony looking he Embraces imperfections in skin like freckles and things like that and and just really um I think interprets a wonderful sense of Beauty from the models that he shoots and I absolutely think the world of Eduardo and his work is outstanding uh he's got some black and white shots in here two that are really neat really great classic look bringing to mind people like Richard avadon at times really well done book really well laid out and I want to talk about another book in a second that that has this going on too but a lot of thought was was given to how the images were going to be presented on the pages and I think Eduardo just did an outstanding job and that's why I think that just having a simple cover like this really wraps the presentation up nicely and so Eduardo did a fantastic job on this so hats off to my buddy Eduardo uh he's a great guy and I'm glad we've been friends over the years and I really want to thank him for sending that to me um next I want to show you a print and this is from Chris Smith and um it was really kind of a cool story here cuz Chris actually entered um one of his images in one of the uh flicker or sorry one of the Twitter um competitions that we had for the book giveaways that we're doing one of the Twitter challenges and it was the one for architecture and he wrote me a letter in here and I'm just going to paraphrase this I won't go into the whole thing but basically he said you know and I think this is important um that he was very surprised he got it he kind of put that in and and submitted it to the um to the competition without giving it a whole lot of thought and this was interesting too now to the point of my letter during her last book giveaway about Charles sheer I chose a photo without putting much thought into it my surprise was that you chose it as a finalist and this is where I think this is key too because I've done that too where sometimes we're not the best judge of our own work uh but he say seeing it on the screen got me thinking about how photographers either greats or amateurs view their own work a lot of actors have trouble watching their own performances because they see all the flaws I kind of had that moment seeing my own IM on the screen it needed a lot of work originally shot it on film scan into Photoshop and I thought it was over processed and he goes on and on and I think it's a really interesting comment that Chris made and I really did love the image and and I wouldn't have picked it otherwise but sometimes when we view our own work and I do this with my work too um you know I'm one of those people I really can't stand to see my own work quite frequently and it's because you see all the blemishes you know what happen behind the scenes and there other times where you think very highly of an image because it's impacted by these other things and that's why I I've said since the beginning of the show that it's always good to get a second pair of eyes when you're selecting work for your portfolio or whatever it is that you're doing anyway I thought this was great um this is the image that was chosen sorry and it's under I'm trying to get the reflection off of there yeah so it's he's got in a sheet of plastic here but anyway this is a really nice dark room print of this and really cool and I want to thanks Chris for sending that to me uh this is really cool and it's really special when when we've done stuff with the show and then people are willing to share stuff like that I I think it's it's really really pretty cool cool um one more book I want to show you and this one is really neat too and this one comes from Thomas Clemens who is uh we're kind of friends on the internet too you probably recognize him from the comments section on YouTube uh he's been around uh and he wrote me a nice note in here too but this is a small book that he he produced called bokum in buildin uh pardon me for my poor German pronunciation but basically bokh is a city that is I believe Northeast of dorf I've never been to Germany so I'm kind of guessing on that um and he this is where he's living right now and he did this wonderful little book of images the translation of this is Bokeem in pictures and they're really beautiful um mostly black and white but he's got some color in here as well and again I think this is a very well-laid Out book he opted for a glossy finish on his paper but really wonderful eye for composition and some really interesting uh interesting images that are in here and I really love the fact there's a lot of images that are in here I love the fact that one it's a simple concept it's just taking the place where you live and doing a phot AO essay about it and I think that's really special um there's a broad range to what he does in here too there's some architectural stuff there's some more poignant uh kinds of landscape photos there's uh what's interesting too is the way he he treats people as a subject I mean most of these it's a very Thomas Tru uh kind of Ideal where where it's Landscapes that are completely devoid of humanity and a lot of these and I think they're really wonderful and I also appreciate the amount of thought U that Thomas gave into pairing the images U that you're seeing you know typically when you look at photo books I love these these night shots when you look at photo books um traditionally images are printed on the right hand side and the left-and side is left blank and I realized that when you're doing print on demand books like blurb and stuff that you want to put more images in and get more bang for your buck but I think if you're going to do that what Thomas has done here is really excellent where you put some thought into the pairing of these images so they really work in sets if they're going to be displayed right next to each other you don't want to have uh facing images that are completely form to one another and Thomas has done a wonderful job of this there are a few people shots in here that I really like to these with this Ferris wheel not Ferris wheel this um Carousel in the middle uh really beautiful work and I really want to thank all these people for sharing their work and this is just a beautiful little book and I will link up to all these guys in the show notes um either websites and or uh Twitter accounts um all that stuff and uh so you guys can go look at more that work and this was really cool also this was really neat too and I just want to show this because it's really cool Adrienne stortz who I featured in one of our channels that you know I recommend you watch on on uh on YouTube um I featured her show and she does a cooking show and she sent me a really sweet thank you note but this is really cool it's got a printed batch of asparagus on one side and wonderful thank you note and then the uh the card is actually made of wood I don't know if you can see that or not it's just a really thin sheet of wood anyway I thought that was really cool I've never had a wood card before so I thought that was uh that was really nice and she left a really nice note in there and I'll link up again to her in the show notes because if if you're into cooking at all and alternative healthy recipes and things like that Adrianne is your girl she has a show um a channel called ex uh exoexo cooks and uh she's great uh I really think the world of her so anyway I want to thank everybody for sending stuff in this was a really nice surprise I do put my po. box uh online so people can find it um but I've never asked anybody to send me anything and I really thought this was special and really what it means to me um that I want to share with you guys is a lot of times you know well all the time I put a lot of work and effort into doing this show and making sure I get several out during the week and a lot of times when you're doing a show if you've ever done online video you probably know what I'm talking about you end up talking to a camera and doing a lot of prep and research and I really don't see what's on the other side of the camera a lot and it's really nice to get feedback from people but what's really special about all the stuff I've shared with you guys today is that this was work that was done by people who are inspired by the show and that really means a lot to me and it's a really nice plus that the work is on the level of quality that it is cuz it makes me really proud that my my audience is that talented and you guys really are and uh so anyway I want to thank everybody for watching once again and thanks to everybody for sending stuff and uh you know if you guys want to see more of this I'd be happy to drill down into the books a little further so you can actually see a lot of the images I know I kind of glossed through these today uh but anyway I want to give a special shout out and thanks to everybody for for uh sending their stuff in anyway guys as always if you like this episode remember to hit the like button and share it with your friends and has always subscribed to the Art of Photography so you'll always be up to date with the latest and the greatest videos as they come out we're doing about three a week now which is a lot but I'm having a lot of fun with the show we got a lot of cool stuff coming up with contrast and some other things that I'll be reporting on this week as well so anyway guys once again this has been another episode of The Art of Photography I'll see you guys in the next episode laterwhat's up everybody Ted Forbes welcome back to the Art of Photography and we're going to do something a little bit different today we're going to do a little mailbag and about two weeks ago I went to go check my PO Box one day and I had three packages in there and they were all from people who watched the show that were sharing their work with me I have two books and a print and I thought this was really cool and I emailed everybody and asked if I could share it on the show and everybody was really excited about it and this is some really amazing stuff and I'm really excited about this first up I have a book and this was sent to me by Eduardo Torres and Eduardo and I'm met at the very first Art of Photography Meetup we ever did which was in London in I guess 2009 and Eduardo and I have been friends on Facebook and we've kept up here and there over the years and he recently contacted me and I actually knew this was coming and he said that he had finished a portfolio book on some of the portraits that he does and wanted to share it with me and I'm going to come back to it in a second but I love the cover on this um it's just a very simple book it's very elegant and he actually signed it and numbered each one of these so it's an addition of 50 and this is number seven of 50 and so I thought that was really cool but Eduardo and I am familiar with his work uh because we kept up online and he has a wonderful style he shoots mainly portraits of women and he does these in black and white and color and does some really beautiful portraits and I think that you know they're very uh kind of a they give a nod to you know Rembrandt and some of the past Master painting types of things but I think what makes Eduardo's work interesting to me at least is his wonderful sense of color which I think is outstanding he uses these wonderful muted tones uh sometimes he does work in black and white and I love the poses I love the cropping on some of these I think they're really amazing and he just does an outstanding job I also like the fact that he shoots um a very contemporary look to his portraits but rather than seeing women that are made up or kind of phony looking he Embraces imperfections in skin like freckles and things like that and and just really um I think interprets a wonderful sense of Beauty from the models that he shoots and I absolutely think the world of Eduardo and his work is outstanding uh he's got some black and white shots in here two that are really neat really great classic look bringing to mind people like Richard avadon at times really well done book really well laid out and I want to talk about another book in a second that that has this going on too but a lot of thought was was given to how the images were going to be presented on the pages and I think Eduardo just did an outstanding job and that's why I think that just having a simple cover like this really wraps the presentation up nicely and so Eduardo did a fantastic job on this so hats off to my buddy Eduardo uh he's a great guy and I'm glad we've been friends over the years and I really want to thank him for sending that to me um next I want to show you a print and this is from Chris Smith and um it was really kind of a cool story here cuz Chris actually entered um one of his images in one of the uh flicker or sorry one of the Twitter um competitions that we had for the book giveaways that we're doing one of the Twitter challenges and it was the one for architecture and he wrote me a letter in here and I'm just going to paraphrase this I won't go into the whole thing but basically he said you know and I think this is important um that he was very surprised he got it he kind of put that in and and submitted it to the um to the competition without giving it a whole lot of thought and this was interesting too now to the point of my letter during her last book giveaway about Charles sheer I chose a photo without putting much thought into it my surprise was that you chose it as a finalist and this is where I think this is key too because I've done that too where sometimes we're not the best judge of our own work uh but he say seeing it on the screen got me thinking about how photographers either greats or amateurs view their own work a lot of actors have trouble watching their own performances because they see all the flaws I kind of had that moment seeing my own IM on the screen it needed a lot of work originally shot it on film scan into Photoshop and I thought it was over processed and he goes on and on and I think it's a really interesting comment that Chris made and I really did love the image and and I wouldn't have picked it otherwise but sometimes when we view our own work and I do this with my work too um you know I'm one of those people I really can't stand to see my own work quite frequently and it's because you see all the blemishes you know what happen behind the scenes and there other times where you think very highly of an image because it's impacted by these other things and that's why I I've said since the beginning of the show that it's always good to get a second pair of eyes when you're selecting work for your portfolio or whatever it is that you're doing anyway I thought this was great um this is the image that was chosen sorry and it's under I'm trying to get the reflection off of there yeah so it's he's got in a sheet of plastic here but anyway this is a really nice dark room print of this and really cool and I want to thanks Chris for sending that to me uh this is really cool and it's really special when when we've done stuff with the show and then people are willing to share stuff like that I I think it's it's really really pretty cool cool um one more book I want to show you and this one is really neat too and this one comes from Thomas Clemens who is uh we're kind of friends on the internet too you probably recognize him from the comments section on YouTube uh he's been around uh and he wrote me a nice note in here too but this is a small book that he he produced called bokum in buildin uh pardon me for my poor German pronunciation but basically bokh is a city that is I believe Northeast of dorf I've never been to Germany so I'm kind of guessing on that um and he this is where he's living right now and he did this wonderful little book of images the translation of this is Bokeem in pictures and they're really beautiful um mostly black and white but he's got some color in here as well and again I think this is a very well-laid Out book he opted for a glossy finish on his paper but really wonderful eye for composition and some really interesting uh interesting images that are in here and I really love the fact there's a lot of images that are in here I love the fact that one it's a simple concept it's just taking the place where you live and doing a phot AO essay about it and I think that's really special um there's a broad range to what he does in here too there's some architectural stuff there's some more poignant uh kinds of landscape photos there's uh what's interesting too is the way he he treats people as a subject I mean most of these it's a very Thomas Tru uh kind of Ideal where where it's Landscapes that are completely devoid of humanity and a lot of these and I think they're really wonderful and I also appreciate the amount of thought U that Thomas gave into pairing the images U that you're seeing you know typically when you look at photo books I love these these night shots when you look at photo books um traditionally images are printed on the right hand side and the left-and side is left blank and I realized that when you're doing print on demand books like blurb and stuff that you want to put more images in and get more bang for your buck but I think if you're going to do that what Thomas has done here is really excellent where you put some thought into the pairing of these images so they really work in sets if they're going to be displayed right next to each other you don't want to have uh facing images that are completely form to one another and Thomas has done a wonderful job of this there are a few people shots in here that I really like to these with this Ferris wheel not Ferris wheel this um Carousel in the middle uh really beautiful work and I really want to thank all these people for sharing their work and this is just a beautiful little book and I will link up to all these guys in the show notes um either websites and or uh Twitter accounts um all that stuff and uh so you guys can go look at more that work and this was really cool also this was really neat too and I just want to show this because it's really cool Adrienne stortz who I featured in one of our channels that you know I recommend you watch on on uh on YouTube um I featured her show and she does a cooking show and she sent me a really sweet thank you note but this is really cool it's got a printed batch of asparagus on one side and wonderful thank you note and then the uh the card is actually made of wood I don't know if you can see that or not it's just a really thin sheet of wood anyway I thought that was really cool I've never had a wood card before so I thought that was uh that was really nice and she left a really nice note in there and I'll link up again to her in the show notes because if if you're into cooking at all and alternative healthy recipes and things like that Adrianne is your girl she has a show um a channel called ex uh exoexo cooks and uh she's great uh I really think the world of her so anyway I want to thank everybody for sending stuff in this was a really nice surprise I do put my po. box uh online so people can find it um but I've never asked anybody to send me anything and I really thought this was special and really what it means to me um that I want to share with you guys is a lot of times you know well all the time I put a lot of work and effort into doing this show and making sure I get several out during the week and a lot of times when you're doing a show if you've ever done online video you probably know what I'm talking about you end up talking to a camera and doing a lot of prep and research and I really don't see what's on the other side of the camera a lot and it's really nice to get feedback from people but what's really special about all the stuff I've shared with you guys today is that this was work that was done by people who are inspired by the show and that really means a lot to me and it's a really nice plus that the work is on the level of quality that it is cuz it makes me really proud that my my audience is that talented and you guys really are and uh so anyway I want to thank everybody for watching once again and thanks to everybody for sending stuff and uh you know if you guys want to see more of this I'd be happy to drill down into the books a little further so you can actually see a lot of the images I know I kind of glossed through these today uh but anyway I want to give a special shout out and thanks to everybody for for uh sending their stuff in anyway guys as always if you like this episode remember to hit the like button and share it with your friends and has always subscribed to the Art of Photography so you'll always be up to date with the latest and the greatest videos as they come out we're doing about three a week now which is a lot but I'm having a lot of fun with the show we got a lot of cool stuff coming up with contrast and some other things that I'll be reporting on this week as well so anyway guys once again this has been another episode of The Art of Photography I'll see you guys in the next episode later\n"