The best thing about making a photo book is that the moment you finish one, you immediately start the next. Exactly 3,528 days after releasing Provocateur, fine art photographer and director Tyler Shields breaks down the relentless creative journey behind crafting his massive 600-page monograph. 

Returning to the still frame after directing feature films on IMAX and VistaVision formats, Shields reflects on how cinema deepened his connection to image-making.

For Shields, a photo book is never just a gallery of past work; it is an enduring physical statement where physical scale, paper texture, and narrative sequencing carry as much weight as the photographs themselves. 

Determining the physical dimensions before curating the images allowed him to treat every spread as an intentional cinematic canvas.

The Benchmark of Intention

Central to the project is Shields' uncompromising creative standard: asking whether he would change a single detail if paid a million dollars for a frame. 

If the answer is yes, the image requires more work. Applying this benchmark to every single page ensures that the collection represents twenty years of absolute artistic clarity.

The Lifelong Pursuit of the Medium

A photo book demands patience because it forces the creator to live with their choices forever. Photography remains a continuous pursuit of perfection without ever truly reaching an endpoint. 

By distilling decades of experimentation—from X Games competition to billboard campaigns and gallery exhibitions—into a single physical volume, Shields captures a lifetime of visual storytelling.

Artistic Philosophy: When curating a project or photo book, determine the physical scale of the output early in the process. Scale drastically changes image impact and dictates how the narrative flows from frame to frame.