For a photographer used to staying behind the lens, the book becomes a rare self-portrait—made from decades of looking outward.

Photographers spend their lives recording other people’s stories—weddings, events, news, the fleeting moments that make up someone else’s memory. But they rarely turn the focus on themselves.

For longtime Utah photographer Steve Coray, that inversion became both a creative challenge and a reckoning. His recently self-published photo book grew out of a desire to preserve meaning in the vast archive he’s built over decades behind the lens. “I have tens of thousands of images,” he says. “I really kept almost everything over the years—old bags, prints, negatives. They mean a lot to me. But when I die, they suddenly become garbage.”

Without children or grandchildren to inherit his work, Coray decided to make something that could outlive him, a single object that distills his relationship with photography into a tangible legacy. “I should create some kind of a legacy,” he recalls thinking. “Something that reflected me—especially my love of photography. And so it just grew into this thought that I should create a coffee table book.”

Coray’s life in photography wasn’t planned. He started shooting as a teenager, taking a few classes in high school and carrying a camera through college “but never taking any photo classes—which I regret,” he says. The turning point came in the 1980s, when he enrolled in a correspondence course through the New York Institute of Photography. “They’d mail you assignments, you’d mail back prints, and they’d send critiques on cassette tape,” he says, laughing. “It was slow but personal, and it made me realize this was something I could actually do.”

That training led to his first job in photojournalism—a staff position at a small newspaper in St. George, Utah. He remembers the unconventional audition: “The photo editor said, ‘Go buy a roll of Tri-X film, shoot it in a photojournalistic mode, and send me the unprocessed film.’ I said, ‘Okay,’ hung up, and then thought, What’s a photojournalistic mode?” He hit the library, shot people in Salt Lake City’s Liberty Park, mailed off the roll, and got the job.

Coray spent three years in the newsroom, learning the rhythms of daily assignments and deadlines. “The rule in photojournalism was that we capture the news, we aren’t the news,” he says. That ethic still shapes his self-effacing approach. “Photographers are notoriously shy about getting in front of the camera. Maybe because we know how little control you have once you’re on that side.”

When advancement meant uprooting his life for a bigger paper somewhere else, Coray stepped away from journalism and into freelance and event work (along the way, he helped 15 Bytes negotiate its early years). He opened his own business in Salt Lake City, photographing weddings, portraits, and corporate events. “I think I shot over 150 weddings,” he says. “I didn’t like studio work—I preferred being out in the world.” The work was steady but exhausting, and the economics grew tougher each year. “One of the reasons I retired from photography is I was finding it difficult to sell why somebody should pay me what I thought I was worth,” he explains. “Clients would say, ‘Oh, my cousin could do that.’ Well, they couldn’t — but they could get something they’d find acceptable for far less. It’s a common challenge for most artists in Utah.”

Eventually, he put the camera down and finished his career working for the State of Utah. Years later, photography crept back in, this time as recreation rather than livelihood. “These days I’m shooting quite a bit,” he says. “Nature for relaxation, rodeos for excitement, and people because I love to connect with them.” He’s also returned to 15 Bytes, pumping up the visuals for the magazine with assignments that capture the spaces and people that make Utah’s arts world exciting.

Portrait of Utah artist Tom Howard, shot for 15 Bytes in 2008.

When Coray began contemplating a book, he wasn’t sure where to start — or whether anyone would care. “It came in phases,” he says. “At first I was just thinking, should I even tackle this? But once I started, I got caught up in it.”

He estimates the process took about a year, working in bursts. “The first phase was collecting images—even more than I used—‘possible possibilities,’” he says. Decades of negatives, prints, and digital folders held tens of thousands of pictures. “Exactly how many, I don’t know,” he laughs, “but the final book has more than 250.”

The first section covers early work from high school and college—“the beginning of my photographic journey”—then moves semi-chronologically before shifting into themed chapters. Each chapter gathers a cluster of favorites, enriched by short backstories and the life lessons he’s drawn from them. “I had gained a lot of life lessons from photography that probably are universal,” he says. “They meant a lot to me, and I thought maybe they’d add value for someone else.”

It isn’t a chronological memoir or a family album, he insists. “There are a few photos of family in there, but it’s not about family. I had one section that focused on that, and I realized it felt too much like a vacation slideshow. I wanted something that told who I am through what I shoot.”

He cites a friend’s remark that guided him: “If I saw a whole bunch of your photos and didn’t know you, I’ll bet by the time I was finished looking at them, I’d have a pretty good idea of who you are.” Coray smiles. “That’s what I wanted this book to do.”

From archive to artifact: Coray assembling A Lifetime of Images on his screen, with the tools of the trade close at hand.

Each photograph becomes a chapter—paired with context, memory, and the lessons Coray says photography taught him.

Coray’s background in printing and page layout helped him imagine the book as a complete artifact. As a young man, he’d run a printing press and worked in newspaper production, so the mechanics of pagination and layout were familiar. He decided to design it himself rather than hand it off to a publisher. “I used InDesign years ago, so I bought a current subscription and re-taught myself,” he says. “I thought, I can do it all — not just hand photos to someone else but design each page. It was an art project for me. It was really difficult. It took a lot longer than I thought.”

After researching publishing options, he settled on a print-on-demand service that offered an online storefront. “I don’t have to store books, handle shipping, or anything like that,” he says. “Someone orders a copy, and within two days it’s printed and shipped.” His only upfront cost was buying author copies; he ordered 50 and has sold most of them in the first few months. “I make 50% of whatever sells,” he adds, a better margin than traditional publishing would allow.

The book’s physical form came down to balancing aesthetics with affordability. “I decided I liked a horizontal format early on,” he says. “The largest horizontal option they offered was nine-by-seven inches, softcover. Had I gone vertical, it could have been eight-and-a-half by eleven, but I stuck with horizontal.” The choice kept printing costs manageable but surprised him later. “I kind of wish I’d spent more time thinking about size—what nine-by-seven actually looks like,” he admits. Extras like hardcovers or slip jackets would have added cost and, he felt, might push the retail price too high. “At $50, some people might think, if I’m spending that much, I want something larger,” he says. “But I really wanted to keep the price down because I had no idea if people would take an interest or not.”

Coray believes there’s room for well-made physical books. “Some people still like to decorate their homes with a nice photography book,” he says. “Coffee-table books might sell less than they did 20 years ago, but they’re not gone. There’s something about holding one, turning pages, seeing an image printed and bound—it feels permanent in a way that screens never do.”

For Coray, the book isn’t a commercial venture so much as a summing-up. “Of course I hope it sells — it’d be nice if it sold a lot,” he says. “But mainly I want to break even and have left in the hands of people I care about a semi-story of my life.”

That “semi-story” blends image, memory, and meaning—not to explain everything, but to leave a trace. “It’s not a point-A-to-point-Z telling of my life,” he says. “It’s more like a reflection of who I am through what I’ve seen.”

His next idea, if he does another, would focus on the sports and traditions of the American West — rodeos, horse events, and Native American relay races—themes he’s shot for years. “I’d have to find a good title,” he says, “something better than Cowboys and Indians because, well, not everyone loves that phrasing.”

But the impulse would be the same: to honor photography, as both craft and as a way of knowing oneself. “Through what you choose to shoot, and how you choose to shoot it, you reveal who you are,” he says quietly.

Shawn Rossiter

The founder of Artists of Utah and editor of its online magazine, 15 Bytes, Shawn Rossiter has undergraduate degrees in English, French and Italian Literature and studied Comparative Literature in graduate school before pursuing a career in art.