An In-Depth Look at My Book-Making Process

Photography, for me, is about preserving experiences and memories in a way that lasts beyond the digital realm. Over the past twenty years, my work has shifted from a young photographer’s spontaneous captures into a deliberate practice, where individual photographs and books form an archive that deals with the passing of time.

This article is a look at how I move from the urge to shoot, through reflection in editing, to the sequencing that turns raw material into a cohesive whole.

My journey into photo book-making began with a portfolio I decided to assemble in order to present my broader work to my graduation jury back in 2009. Then it evolved towards travel books: one chronicling my trips to Japan between 2010 and 2013 (published in 2013) and another about Iceland (a trip from 2011 turned into a book in 2017). Later, the birth of my children and my family life inspired private volumes that will never be released to the public, but each book has been a refining of skills and reflects an existential urge, a way to deal with the unstoppable rush of time.

Capturing images :

I’ve always valued serendipity and spontaneity while out taking picture. I don’t like to plan overly in advance and for a long time, I approached photography while losing myself in the moment. However, over the years, I have come to balance immersion and preparation more. My switching to digital medium format isn't a stranger in this change, as it has redefined how I approach taking images. This evolution has allowed me to retain spontaneity while also ensuring that I gather the material needed to build a cohesive series later on.

This being said, when I’m out shooting, I invariably enter a personal, alternate universe and even if an underlying project exists in the back of my mind, the act of taking the picture remains a spontaneous gesture.

My background as a videographer and video editor has played a significant role in both the spontaneous and the more prepared aspects of my image-taking. My courses and later professional work in videography have refined the way I frame my shots, making my framing more intentional and clean while at the same time strengthening this impression of being looking at reality with a mental filter. It has also deeply informed the way I construct books: every frame is both as a standalone image and as a piece of the whole, not unlike a scene within a movie.

The Editing Process:

Editing is more internal. It feels like returning to the cabin after a long trek, sitting by the fire with coffee, letting memories of the day resurface slowly, same but different; altered.

Note that I don't really focus much of my thoughts on culling anymore. With experience I find that strong images declare themselves in a more obvious manner while weaker images have become easier to discard without guilt. I do make more than one pass of course, and the arranging of the larger narrative within the book means I'll often go back to the image pool to find candidates that "fit", I'm largely past the era of my practice where choosing was a painfully slow process.

Editing refers here to image post-processing, where my approach is usually about tuning photographs until the mood in the final image reflects how I experienced the moment. Because when I'm shooting, it often feels like the world is turning slightly painterly or dreamlike. I don't know whether this is a quality of being a compulsive day dreamer with expansive inner worlds, but this is how I experience image taking and how my editing is about trying to recapture this inner filter over reality. In the past, this instinct led me toward digital art, reshaping reality entirely through photomanipulations but with time, that impulse has softened.

Crafting the Book: Sequencing and Visual Rhythm

The next phase is where I edit the book itself—a stage distinct from image editing. Here, I’m not simply placing images in chronological order. Instead, I construct a narrative that relies on deliberate sequencing and visual rhythm. I assemble double-page spreads and group images that share a similar vibe in terms of tone, composition, and contrast, slowly building up a conversation in pacing: tension, release, rhythm.

Dialog within spreads can be graphic, thematic, symbolic, in consonance or in opposition, or several (all) of these at once.

In this stage, I pay attention to how basic elements such as the alignment of horizons carry across pages. If the horizon isn’t level from one page to the next, it creates a disconnection, much like a continuity error in cinema. This is the kind of detail that gets picked up immediately when "reading" a spread. Even without formal visual media literacy, the misalignment gnaws at one's subconscious perception. People feel something is off, but can't really tell what, or why.

The other point of attention that I try to pay attention to is making sure the editing of the image on either side matches the other. There is nothing worse than noticeable contrast differences within a spread. This also extends to more subtle color matching. There are also the times when I use certain associations to create visual tension. For example, a shift from full-color images to a brief black-and-white section is an effective way to signal a change in mood.

Most photo books, especially the bulkier ones, will feature images that are less impactful than others. That’s expected and acceptable. Weaker images can be used as pauses, allowing the reader’s eyes to "rest" on more digestible images. When wielded correctly, this ebb and flow can make one's book feel like a film alternating between different types of pacing. Some scenes go hard and others let the audience catch its breath.

Aligning horizontal lines can greatly enhance spreads. in this case these two unrelated locations seem to be one and the same

A key element in my sequencing is my use of digital spaces to test out different arrangements. I maintain an old Tumblr blog as a drafting board for small series and regularly share works in progress on a photography Discord server where I discuss ideas with fellow photographers. In these environments, I experiment with double-page associations and test successions of 4–6–8 images to see how they interact together.

However, I’ve found that what works well on a digital screen doesn’t always translate to the physical realm. The physical book is its own medium, with tactile nuances and viewing constraints—like the center pages being less visible in book form—which force me to re-evaluate compositions even if they perform perfectly online.

I design each “chapter” of a book to be immersive yet cohesive. Some sections might consist of just three double-page spreads to maintain a certain tension, while others might stretch over five or six spreads when a slower, more contemplative pace feels right. Lately, I’ve noticed myself gravitating toward uniform layouts, though this is always dependent on the project’s nature. Using a single layout, or a very limited set, can either enhance the reading experience by creating a deliberate rhythm or risk dulling it through predictability. For Tokyo Beckoning, I deliberately chose the same layout for every page—black backgrounds that suggest letterbox bars, reinforcing a cinematic tone. When I’m working with white-page designs, I tend to introduce more variation in the layouts because the contrast and pacing shifts feel more pronounced. In the end, none of these choices are bound by strict rules. It’s about maintaining a continuous, responsive dialogue between the images—how they converse across double-spreads, how they carry the sequence forward, and how I want the narrative to breathe as a whole.

I also have taken the habit or inserting some of these image-combinations into my private books. My worthwhile efforts then find their place next to my family pictures, giving them context and a deeper meaning. I see this as a bit of a pre-hashing of the work that's required for a project meant to be released publicly. Some associations will have then become obvious. However, not all images that end up in private books find their place in public ones and vice versa.

In the past I would also map out ideas by spreading hundreds of credit-card sized prints on the ground and reordering the photographs instinctively, throwing these ideas at a metaphorical wall trying to see what would stick. I don't do this anymore as I've become comfortable with a fully-digital process, but this can be an invaluable way of going about constructing a book both in the perspective of the double page and in the scope of the whole narration.

Images can speak to each other, in a sort of Kuleshov effect. The policeman seems to keep a watchful eye on the woman.

An important aspect of book-making that I want to stress is that the time actually spent editing one should not be underestimated. Time is necessary to digest information, confirm choices and being able to continuously reassess what is being constructed. I always find myself coming and going from it, working in waves of varying lengths and intensity. Sometimes I linger on small sections, fine-tuning them like a composer perfecting a passage, while I leave other pages blank with only a vague idea of what will go there, completely open to reshuffling as the process evolves.

To give you a broad idea; for larger books, those over 200 pages, it can take me up to a year, with countless evenings spent refining the flow, adjusting pacing, and experimenting with sequencing. Even with shorter books of around 100 pages, I still very easily spend months working on it before ordering a proof copy. This is the invisible labor behind the final product, the patience and detail that can’t be rushed. Taking one’s time is an essential part of the process, and it’s something that should never be overlooked.

Balancing Instinct and Deliberate Craft

This whole process (shooting, editing, sequencing) is a long negotiation between instinct and precision. Out in the field, I give myself to instinct. In editing, I recover the emotional landscape of what was shot. In sequencing, I step back even further, reshaping those fragments into a deliberate narrative.

My background in video sharpened this habit of thinking in sequences, of using framing and pacing as tools. Choices like aligning horizons, or deciding how to treat colors, have become instinctual over years of practice, much like the basic movements of any martial art, practiced and repeated until they stop being conscious decisions and become instincts of their own. This unfortunately makes the transmission of such fine skills extremely difficult, as beginners tend to fixate on the surface gestures (clinging to things like the rule of thirds for dear life) while missing the instinctual mechanism beneath, the engine that actually shapes the work.

Closing with an Invitation:

Making photo books isn’t a creative obligation for anybody, yet it is a classic and noble final form for any body of work. To me, and my high-strung thirst for existence, making books is a way of making an argument against disappearance, through objects that will hopefully outlast me. My own preoccupations aside, if you ever embark on such a journey yourself, you might simply find that the act of arranging images into a fixed order, printed on a finite number of pages, is a kind of resistance against the endless, formless sprawl of digital imagery.