Photo work: Forty photographers on process and practice, edited by Sasha Wolf
This book is as academic as they come! That is my review in short! If you are curious to look over the shoulders of 40 acclaimed photographers (like Andrew Moore or Paul Graham) and understand their process and workflow, then this is the book to read!
All 40 have been given the same questionnaire of 12 questions like “Do you create with presentation in mind, be that a gallery show or a book?”. The book is simply the documentation of 40 answers to these 12 questions.
This is not your beginners book about photography, nor the advanced book about photography, rather it is an look into the minds and workflows of some highly creative people. I could as well have been a book about painters – the questions and their answers are that agnostic to photography.
So only if you have a keen interest in this highly specialized area can I recommend this book – otherwise I would stay clear of the 255 pages of process and insights.
The Photography Storytelling Workshop by Finn Beales
This is not your average photography book – far from. Finn Beales apparently has landed some VERY big accounts (Apple, Land Rover, Audi, Cartier, etc) and in this book he shares how to pitch for a photography job, plan, deliver and maintain a good long lasting relationship with the client.
The book opens with a chapter about storytelling and how you make a series of pictures tie together to tell a story, with a clear red thread throughout the images – the last image holding the hand of the first one. It continues into how to pitch for a job, win it, plan it, execute the shoot day, edit and finally deliver. I learned a lot about how to manage such process (including the shoot day(s)) as a project and how much planning that is required.
There is a very good section in the book about what colors work together and why – and illustrated with specific examples to underline the points made. Finn coins this as creating a mood board. This was an eye opener for me. I have not come across a photo book where the use of color is addressed in this way and I can tell that this section of the book is one that I will re-visit over and over again.
Finn also has a section about which focal lengths he uses for what kind of shots and I really felt that this part of the book was like looking over the shoulder of a successful commercial photographer. I really found this part extraordinary, and as a result it re-ignited my love for the 50mm prime as a universal tool in my camera bag!
There also are some chapters about editing your photos, but here I felt that I did not learn that much new. However, Finn also addresses how to do data management of your photo files, and here there are lots of tips and tricks that I think you will find useful.
So all in all I found this book both interesting and useful, but if you are new to photography, this would NOT be the book I’d start with. There are better options from Joel Sartore and Michael Freeman. However, if:
storytelling with pictures
project management of your shoots
use of colors to create moods
creating and maintaining client accounts
processing and storing your images
are subjects of interest to you, then this book is definitely worth it. 176 pages with lots of illustrations and examples and exercises. And there is more to be found on his website.
I must admit that I was a bit disappointed when I opened the parcel the book came in, only to find a relatively small and not all that thick book. I had expected a big and heavy book – the bold name “bible” had created some expectations that the appearance of the book could not match.
However, as they say, don’t judge a book by it’s cover, or as in this case: by the size and weight of it. It really is comprehensive. I can understand why Michael Freeman has named this “The Photography Bible” because he really covers a lot of aspects of photography and manages to do so in a condensed way. The main blocks from the table of content are: Exposure, Light and lightning, Composition and Post Processing – distributed across 330 pages with lots of examples and so called challenges.
Challenges are exercises for you as a reader to take on to complete a chapter or an knowledge area. And the author in the foreword recommends that you follow the structure of the book from front to back and don’t just dip in here and there. I can see that great care has been made to present the subjects in a particular order and wrap it with an exercises (challenges) to enhance your learning, so I support the advice to read the book from front to back in its full and take up the challenges presented.
I can really recommend this book if you are after one of the most complete books about the basics of photography. And more than that – it is one of the few books that I have seen talk about soft and hard light, chiaroscuro lightning and not just aperture, depth of field and the like (which of course is also included). It also covers composition to a great extend – a subject that in itself could fill an entire book. So, in short, a great book if you are after a rather complete book about the basics of photography. But not a book that I would read from front to back, I more use it more as a reference when I want to study a subject in detail.
Review of the book Understanding Exposure by Bryan F. Peterson.
Book review
Understanding exposure by Bryan F. Peterson
The title of this book is well chosen as it is all about exposure. So for a beginner to photography I would not recommend this as a general introduction to photography, but if you have been shooting for some time and want to take a deep dive into the nuts and bolts of exposure, this is the book.
One of the things that I learned from this book is not to be afraid of closed down apertures. Bryans range for “normality” was way into my range of extreme apertures, so I have really had to work with my own convictions here. Another takeaway is how much you can do with the white balance on your camera – here I think the book (just look at the cover) gave me some insights that gave me appetite to try a different mode than auto white balance on my camera.
Bryan has several mottos, of which “you keep shooting” is one. I think he here refers to the fact that experience and persistence is key to becoming a better photographer. Another motto is “shoot the adjective, not the noun” and here asks us to look not only at the subject but also what works with the subject, for example background or the way light is shaped on its way through a fence.
I can recommend this book – not as your first buy – but certainly as one of your more advanced books. I did not find this to be an easy read, but certainly a rewarding one, if you really dig in. If you don’t feel like buying this book, try following Bryan on Instagram – he really gives some good insights to “behind the scenes” for the images he posts.
The title is very precise when it comes to this book: photo basics. It is an introduction to the basics of photography, but a very good one, probably one of the best I have read. It strikes a very good balance between covering all aspects of the basics without diving into too much detail. However, this does not imply that it is only a book about basics – there is information for both the beginner and more advanced photographer, but it is also a condensed reading, so you may want to revisit some sections several times.
The book is divided into two parts: the basics and practicing the basics, with these two parts evenly split across the 254 pages. The book is packed with beautiful photos, and there are tips and challenges for both the beginner and the more advanced photographers.
Joel’s motto is “if it is not working for you, it is working against you” – an advice related to what you decide to put in your frame. I find that what Joel has put in this book is all working for me as a photographer, and hence I can recommend this book wholeheartedly. If I was new to photography and could only buy one book, this would be the one.
