I am self-taught photographer. Actually I did take one course in photography, but it didn’t help me much, besides understanding the fact that I don’t like to shoot in groups where ten cameras are pointed at single subject. I learned photography from much practice, web sites, other photographer’s work, tutorials, and books.
Books… books… sounds easy right? You pick up a book, you read it, and you become that much smarter. Well, as I found out in photography it is not always the case. There are tons of photography related books, but I might just start a war here by saying that many of them are pretty much the same. You know, books that named something like “The complete photography book” or “Everything you need to know about digital photography” or “The most useful photography tips”. I am just throwing titles here so you’d get the idea.
Here is the thing – when you’re into photography for a couple of years, and you already got your basics as to how to operate your camera, what are f-stops and shutter speeds, ISO, you know all the basic stuff – you realize that all such books have no value for you whatsoever because they are chewing on the same material over and over again. In photography all these basics are just the beginning, not really photography but the initial tools to it, and frankly you can learn all that on the net much faster.
So realizing that, I was looking for books that would really be helpful to me in my evolution as a photographer. And here are two of the books that I found to be just great! I learned so much from them, and I am sure that many of you will too, if you decide to read them.
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“The Photographer’s Eye” by Michael Freeman
In this book Michael describes different aspects of photographic composition such as framing the image, graphic and photographic elements of composition, composing with light and color, the intent of the photographer when composing, and more. What I liked the most about this book is that Michael doesn’t say that you need to do this or that in order to get a successful image. He describes all the different aspects of composition and how they might affect the result, giving appropriate examples along the way. |
| Michael explains certain rules of photographic composition and at the same time shows that rules are meant to be broken.
In my opinion this book is… how can I put it… the advanced basics of composition in photography. I really couldn’t say that this book is very basic, but at the same time I think that any photographer should read it right after his camera’s manual, or even before. It is not enough to know how to operate your expensive equipment (though it is essential, I must say 🙂 ) in order to create compelling photographs. You have to understand how composition is created in photography, and Michael Freeman explains it perfectly in this book. If I would learn photography in any institution, I’d sure hope that this book is included in the curriculum. In short – read it, you won’t regret it. |
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“The Moment It Clicks” by Joe McNally
This book is actually is pretty famous one, and Joe McNally is pretty famous himself. He was Life magazine’s staff photographer, he also shot for National Geographic, and many other big names. Really, I am sure that Joe McNally doesn’t need my introduction 🙂 Recently I’ve read some negative feedback about this book, saying that Joe doesn’t teach in this book useful things but instead talks about his life and photographs. Another argument was that Joe has a big budget for his assignment and he could allow to buy expensive props for his shots. I felt pity for the person who wrote |
| that feedback as he (or she) didn’t understand what really this book is about. In this book Joe writes about his assignments – how he got them, what were the demands, and how he solved them. There is not a lot of technical data, but there ARE enough technical details, for a thinking person to fill in the blanks.
More important to me was to know HOW this man thinks, how he operates under pressure, and where his creativity comes from. Joe writes about all this in this book. It is also PACKED with creative solutions to many difficult problems that Joe’s assignments presented. I learned a lot from this book, and if you read it with right mindset you will too. This book’s aim is to inspire photographers to explore and develop their creativity, to show that any photographic problem can be solved one way or another. And it contains lots of examples to back it up. From the other side Joe also tells the truth about photographer’s life, that it is not easy, and not everything always goes the way that you’d like it to. Again, when you are past the basics of photography, you need to develop your photographic vision and creativity, and this book helped me a lot in my quest. I think it could help you too should you decide to read it. |
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Did you read any of these two books? What do you think of them?
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Greg.
I haven’t read those two, but I can recommend books from in-public site. (I’m not affiliated with them :))
Thanks for posting about these two, I will surely give them a look!
Ilan, if you read them, I’d be glad to hear what you think.
I am going to see if they have them at the library. if not i will by them. thanks for the tip.
Siren, I suggest you to buy “The photographers eye” first, because from what I understand you are a beginner photographer, and this book will teach you a lot about composition.