I must admit that I like Scott Kelby’s books.  I feel that they are a great resource for beginners.  They explain things mostly in layman’s terms and if you are interested in a certain technique, then you can go look into the more technical aspects of it.

The Adobe Photoshop CS4 Book by Scott Kelby is a great introduction to the power of Photoshop.  The book goes from getting the photos off of your camera using Adobe Bridge, organizing them, doing preliminary (and some detailed) edits in Camera Raw, more intense editing in Photoshop itself and finishes with detailing how to prepare your pictures for printing and web publishing.

For someone like myself who has limited experience with Photoshop (I have used it before, but was teaching myself as I went) this is a fantastic book for giving you the right mindset for attacking photo editing in general.

One of the most important things I have learned from a first look at this book is the importance of a good workflow.  Doing things in the same order every time is important for ensuring consistent and efficient results.  Scott even provides a step-by-step example of his workflow for editing a portrait (I wish there was more of this for different types of pictures).

Another important thing I will take from my first read is the fact that Camera Raw is a very powerful tool that allows for much more manipulation than just white balance/exposure corrections and noise elimination.  You can do a lot of manipulation in Camera Raw and the tools provided there make it easier to make the changes at the Raw stage as opposed to in PS itself.  I also learned about the importance and power of using layers to make your adjustments in PS to make non-destructive changes to your photos.  If you perform edits using layers you can remove certain edits later on without affecting other changes, and you can also adjust your adjustments later (if that makes sense).

I will need to reference this book again for the finer details when I do get more serious about post processing, but the first read gave me an idea of the power and abilities of Photoshop and a better idea of how to approach post processing in general.

I hope to start developing my own workflow soon and hope to show some of the results in the near future.

I recently purchased three books on (digital) Photography and have just finished reading the last one: The Photographers Eye: Composition and Design for Better Digital Photos by Michael Freeman.

This book was considerably different than the previous books I have read and required a lot more thought.  I’m going to say that it was a lot more verbose than the previous books and I’m still on the fence as to if that is good or bad.  As I was reading it I was not sure if I liked it, but upon finishing the last chapter it felt much more complete and made more sense.  It will be interesting to read the book again later once I have a little bit more experience with the technical side of photography and need to learn more about the artistic composition side to take my pictures to the next level.  For now it has given me some things to think about in the back of my head.

Much of the book deals with how to use the geometry of the intended subject to create an interesting and appealing image.  Things like using diagonals and curves to draw the eye around the image and toward the intended subject and using depth of field to guide the viewer through the shot.  There is also a chapter on using colour and how it helps with composition.

The last two chapters were the most interesting for me.   The 5th chapter discusses intent and how to prepare for and compose a shot the gets across to the viewer your intended mood and subject and provides advice on how to surprise the viewer with interesting compositions.  The last chapter brings everything together by discussing the process involved in taking a well composed picture such as hunting for, setting up and anticipating an interesting photo.  Particularly interesting were the case studies that describe the thought process and setup for some of his planned and spontaneous photo shoots.  I almost wish there were more of these.

The photos chosen to illustrate the points were very suitable and often very pleasant to look at.  I especially like when he shows some of the unused shots from a series of photos as to illustrate what does and does not work, the importance of taking many photos of the same subject (of possible) and the differences between a good and a great photo.

Though it was an interesting book and probably useful that I start thinking about some of these things, I’d say that this book is better for someone who has more experience with the technical part of photography and needs to start working on the artistic part to bring his/her photos to the next level.  I will definitely come back to this book in the future.

The second photography book I read was The Digital Photography Book: The Step-by-Step Secrets for how to Make your Photos Look Like the Pros by Scott Kelby.  Apparently this is one of the best selling digital photography books out there and I can understand why people like it.

The book is quite light hearted and as Kelby says it is intended to read like he was with you on a shoot (or preparing for a shoot) and he was giving you advice on how to get photos.  It is not very technical which can be good and bad.  He is telling you how, but not why.

The first chapter provides advice on how to take sharp photos (tripod! it’s not a big secret, every site and book talks about, but he has other tips).  He then gets into some basic scenarios and provides advice on how to take good pictures.  There are chapters on shooting flowers, weddings, landscapes, sports and portraits.  He covers composition, metering, lighting and all sorts of topics related to setting up, preparing for, taking and post-processing pictures.  He also advises on how to avoid problems (backing up shots, extra cards, etc.).  He concludes with recipes for specific types of shots.

Providing shooting advice without too much technical content is an interesting concept but sometimes it is useful to understand the why so when you encounter a new situation you can make decisions on your own.  But this is a good start.

It is a lot of information to take in during the first read because the book covers such a wide range of shooting scenarios and I will definitely be going through it again.  On the next read I plan on designing myself some exercises to try out some of the techniques.

After looking at the recommended reading material on several photography websites I ended up purchasing three books:  Understanding Exposure, The Digital Photography Book and The Photographers Eye.

I started with Understanding Exposure: How to Shoot Great Photographs with a Film or Digital Camera by Bryan Peterson.  For a beginner photographer like myself this is an amazing book.  The book is based largely on the photographic (or exposure) triangle and how to use it to your creative advantage.  The key word there is “creative”.  There are several correct exposures but there are fewer or even just one, as Bryan puts it, creatively correct exposures.  He discusses light meters (particularly the one built into the camera) and how to use them to your advantage.

Chapters on aperture and shutter speed discuss how to determine which settings are creatively best for your current shot (depth of field, motion blur, freezing motion, etc.) and to adjust the other element(s) of the triangle accordingly (little is done with ISO, though it is discussed).  The chapter on light is among the most important chapters, though I think I understood it the least.  Bryan discusses several different lighting conditions and how to take advantage of them.  The section on 18% Reflectance may have lost me a little bit, but I will work on that one.  It has something to do with when you should trust your exposure meter or not and how to adjust accordingly (using your hand in most cases).  The part about using the sky to set the exposure in certain cases is something I have long been using on my on Canon A620 point and shoot for years to avoid over exposed sky and it is nice to see that I did that correctly (though I was shooting in automatic mode for that).  The part about metering (-2/3 exposure) to green backgrounds seems very interesting though my early attempts at making that work have not turned out so well.  I will continue to practise.

The example shots provided in the book are, in many cases, stunning.  One of my favourites is the sunflower that illustrates Depth of Field (I’m not even a huge fan of flower photography, but that may convert me).

This is a fantastic book for someone just starting out (I can’t yet talk of it’s value for anyone beyond just a beginner, but I’m sure even moderate photographers can learn from it).  I am much more comfortable moving over to manual mode now and have started to do that.

So now all my pictures should be perfect right?  It seems that they aren’t.  I guess thats part of the challenge of photography, knowing the technical stuff is not all there is.  It’s when and how to use it properly.  I plan on going through the book again in the near future and using the techniques discussed.  I will try to go through it step by step on here when I do, showing you what I come up with.

I will discuss the other books mentioned in the near future (I’m still working on The Photographers Eye) and I also have some shots to share from my recent weekend ‘shoot’ at the family cottage.  A few of the shots worked out quite well, especially some nighttime long exposures and some wildlife stuff that I didn’t have to go very far to find.