Customer Reviews

An Ansel Adams Guide : Basic Techniques of Photography (Book One)

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John Schaefer is a fine photographer who works in black and white and color. In "Basic Techniques of Photography" John Schaefer has created a wonderful "how to" on the basic and intermediate aspects of photography. The book is filled with helpful information, and beautifully illustrated with the work of notable photographers, with many images due to Ansel Adams. Here are summarized and illustrated many of the ideas from the famous Ansel Adams series of books which include "The Negative" and "The Print". A strength of the book is a clear exposition on the value and use of the zone system. Other strengths include sidebars which provide detailed comments about individual images, and sequential images which show the result of some of the darkroom techniques, or exposure information discussed in the book. This is a fine book, one which any active photographer will benefit from.

I found the Ansel Adams books on "The Print" and "The Negative" a bit on the heavy side, but John Schaefer's book is a superb addition to any aspiring photographer's library. It covers the photographic field very comprehensively and in easily understood English, and without the frills of technical jargon so loved by some authors.
Although the book deals with colour photography as well, I would thoroughly recommend this book to any aficionado of black and white photography-- it is, without doubt one of the best books on photography I have in my library!