Seeing a Decade of Street Photography Turning into a Monograph (Part 1): Warming Up
On storytelling, growth, and the power of printed work
You’ve wandered the streets for years, camera in hand, collecting blips in the normality and telling visual stories. Stories made up by you or imagined by those who took the time to observe your work.
For you, street photography is both a pleasure and an obsession, a private endeavor. Yet, as a social being, you seek to share your work and establish meaningful connections.
In today’s world, your photography sees the world mainly through social media. You seek feedback. Mostly virtual feedback. This feedback can fuel you, propelling you to shoot. However, it can trap you in the (infamous) dopamine loop, fostering constant comparison and addiction, ultimately draining creativity. You might find yourself shouting into the void, only hearing your echo.
Eventually, you decide to write about photography and your photography. Writing means reflection, which helps you slow down. You curate your photography with words. As with reading, writing offers the opportunity to pause. The reader (and viewer) also slows down from the hectic scrolling and savors this (not so common) mixed media.
Occasionally, you escape this bubble by engaging in the offline world. You participate in photo walks or workshops. It’s great, offering new perspectives and eventually leading to new photographs. If you market it well, you can even sell your skills by giving your own workshops. But…is it enough? Does it truly satisfy that deeper artistic urge?
You need to get physical.
The Power of Detaching from Virtuality
It’s special to have prints on a wall. Compared to the virtual experience, it’s vastly different to hold the fruit of all those kilometers you walked and put the pieces of reality you have framed in someone’s hands. It’s a luxury to have strangers stand in front of your work, discussing it. It feels surreal. A couple of people doing that has more value than thousands of red hearts on social media.
A physical exhibition of your work demonstrates how serious you are about your photography. It forces you to curate and develop narratives. Anyone can make a fantastic photograph, but developing coherent narratives using your photographs as building blocks is difficult. Much more difficult, but rewarding.
After twelve years of hitting the streets, I’ll finally organize an exhibition. It will be in September this year at my neighborhood community center in Utrecht, through one of my wife’s contacts. She volunteers there every week. Why not before? I blame my shyness, laziness, and the lack of an instruction manual for how to make these exhibitions happen.
Ahead of it, and by coincidence, I was invited last month by a publisher to create my first monograph. The publisher is Snap Collective.
I decided to accept the challenge, and this story is the first in a series where I’ll share all the steps of making the book happen — behind-the-scenes insights, creative decisions, and more. I hope this inspires you to step up your game ;-)
The Monograph
The idea of creating a monograph, a tangible collection of my photographic vision, has always been a distant dream and a symbol of procrastination. It’s so easy to fall into the vicious circle of walk, post, like, walk, post, like, repeat.
When you want to grow, you must shake the waters from time to time. I’ve been there: reading essays, admiring others’ work, going to workshops, changing the camera, going from digital to film, back to digital, and different focal lengths, you name it. Is that enough? It can be for a while, but not in the long term.
If you’re serious about your photography, you may think about creating a legacy.
One crucial change in my status quo was my decision to write about photography last year. It was refreshing and helped me find new perspectives by critically examining my work. By writing, you expose yourself further. It is an exercise where you ask yourself why and how you made a photograph. If you can explain why and how, you’ll be a step closer to becoming a better photographer.
In the meantime, a question started to grow in my mind.
I’ve been making street photography for over a decade and writing about it successfully. People say good things about my photography — friends, acquaintances, and a significant online following. Isn’t it time to think about a book?
It would be a challenge and a test (!) to the value of my candid moments blended with Fine Art aesthetics.
A monograph is not just a collection of photographs; it’s a statement. It’s a declaration that those moments, those stories, deserve to be seen, felt, and remembered. It’s a time when you decide to give the quiet photographs a louder voice and the opportunity to speak to each other and to the viewer and reader.
You can do the same with an online, curated collection of photographs, but you can’t avoid it. It will be ephemeral. Books preserve an artist’s vision in ways that screens never can.
The Concept of Publishing with Print-On-Demand Technology
Unlike traditional publishing, Snap Collective offers an alternative path. There’s no upfront financial burden, and no risky print runs sit in storage. Instead, the book is crowdfunded through a pre-order campaign. If enough people commit to buying it, the book goes into production. If not, no money is lost, and no copies are wasted.
You bring your work directly to those who care about it. The publisher provides editorial guidance, printing, and global distribution, while you focus on what matters most: creating a book that feels true to your vision.
The two-week pre-order period will succeed, and the book will go into production if at least twenty-five orders are placed. The book’s quality is exquisite, and the cover binding process is handmade. The price tag is on the high side, though.
I’m considering strategies to make it attractive to those who follow my work and are willing to support me, probably through a combination of a free art print, a yearly subscription of my weekly newsletters, and/or an online or F2F workshop in the Netherlands. If you have other ideas or wishes, let me know!
What My Monograph Will Be
Street photography is a way for me to show myself to the world and a mindfulness practice. It involves observing people, gestures, shapes, light, and shadows, accepting what’s offered without forcing anything. This mindful observation allows you to notice how what you see affects your senses. When everything aligns, you capture the moment—in silence, invisible.
You step outside yet look within. A monograph is very personal. For my monograph I selected the title “Seeing the Quiet”. It aligns with how I see street photography and highlights the contrast with the noise that often fills the world, being part of it, virtual and increasingly chaotic.
“Seeing the Quiet” is my visual exploration of the human condition as it unfolds in the urban landscape. Each photograph blends raw reality, fine art, and experimentation. Quiet narratives in black-and-white whispering stories that invite you to pause, reflect, and discover the irony, surprises, and beauty hidden in fragments of everyday life.
Be still with yourself until the object of your attention affirms your presence.
Minor White
I plan to accompany some of the photographs with short fictional stories inspired by them. I call that series “Snapshots”. Ultimately, a photograph to work should be about 20% technique and 80% emotion. Those short stories will be about that 80%.
Over the next few weeks, I’ll document my journey—pre-selecting and pairing the photographs with text, constructing narratives, refining the layout, and preparing for the pre-order campaign. If you’ve ever thought about publishing a photography book or are curious about the process, follow along. This is just the beginning, and it will be fun!
Would you hold a copy of Seeing the Quiet in your hands? Let’s find out together.
As a warm-up, I created three mockups for the book’s cover with the publisher’s designer. This was the first step after the initial interview concerning the general book concept.
Do you want to give me your opinion about the cover mockups below? Let me know your favorite in the pool below.
And…Have you ever considered turning your photography into a book? What’s stopping you?
How exciting Fernando!! Your work is outstanding and I love knowing about you exhibiting as well. If it makes you feel any better, I have been practicing street for 20 years and still no book! I exhibited over the years and got some press, but never a book. It's way overdue. I'm so happy for you!
I think this deserves another congratulations. I am blown away by your work. What a pleasure to meet you here. I would like a copy of the book. I must support you. Hopefully it won’t require me to mortgage the house. What a breath of relief from all of the stuff that is going on. Fernando, since I will not have a chance to meet you in person (health limitations), what about a virtual F2F? Not in person but it’s a kind of F2F. Randy (I hope you know how excited I am for you.)