Customer Reviews

The Art of Black and White Photography: Techniques for Creating Superb Images in a Digital Workflow

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This is a welcome volume for B&W photogs and a useful read for color photographers from another fine German photographer/author. This is Hoffmann's first instructional book to be published in English, although he has had numerous articles on image design/composition published in the magazine "Leica Fotographie International", or LFI, which, by the way, is not published by Leica-Camera GMBH.

Hoffmann emphasizes the possibilities in tonal manipulation in digital and analogue photographing. The point of his presentation is always to show how manipulating the tones and, therefore, contrast, contributes to the design of the image with respect to the photographer's intentions. He spends a significant amount of space on showing how to elicit mood in various kinds of photographs (content).

His chapters start with, what I find to be, rather interesting summaries of the chapter topic's history, significant practitioners, and current directions. Then he examines several of his own images in detail. His commentary on an image concentrates on the visual structure and on the darkroom and/or digital manipulations necessary to realize his intentions. The only other book that comes to mind for nearly such excellence in pictorial descriptions or captions is the first edition of Bill Smith's "Designing a Photograph," which sets the standard for applying the Gestalt visual psychological approach to analyzing image structure.

Rather differently from the other two top volumes on image structure currently in print, Michael Freeman's "The Photographer's Eye," and Harald Mante's "The Photograph," Hoffmann spends significant time looking at the various genres of photographic subject matter and then covers composing/design from the point of view of visual tensions and abstract structure. There is overlap with both of the other volumes, but also depth and emphasis that is his own. Color is not part of the subject in this book, but color photographers will benefit from Hoffmann's insights into tonality, contrast, and structure in images.

This book, IMHO, sort of completes the circle of really good books on photographic composition/design at the intermediate level. With this book, the years 2007 and 2008 have been the best in a few decades for the publication of outstanding books on design/composition, and it is interesting to this reviewer that the three best are by an English and two German photographer/authors . It just does not seem that US practioners are taught the nuts and bolts of visual design to any degree of depth and ability to articulate their thoughts about image structure. The ability of even world class US photographers to discuss the reasons that their images work in structural terms is relatively rare.

I like this book enough to make a triumvirate of this one, Freeman's book, and Mante's book for readers interested in sophisticated, analytical approaches to visual design and image structure. The only thing I would wish for is that more of his photos be accompanied by those delightful little thumbnails with his structural line diagrams. The more of these there are in a book, the more an interested reader packs away in one's mental image databank for later resurrection and use.

Some asides before I finish. Hoffmann gets more visual mileage from aircraft vapor trails than anyone else I know of. Most of us regard these as intrusions into the tranquility of our landscape images. But, in the venerable tradition of divorcing content from an image's abstract structure, and the role of structure being to support the content, Hoffmann integrates these features into his images so forcefully that to remove them would ruin the image. Bravo; Mante would be proud.

Too, the basic structural architecure of many of his images rests upon the grid formed from the golden ratio approximations of breaking the height and width into 5/8th and 3/8th divisions. One advantage of this choice versus the preference of US photographers for the Thirds Rule is that the Thirds method breaks the space into nine identical rectangles - a recipe well on the way to boring space management. Yet, as shows Charles Bouleau in his seminal book, "The Painter's Secret Geometry," even relatively simple visual architectures in the hands of someone with excellent training and inspired talent yield captivating, dynamic images, while the plodders among us achieve less subtle and interesting results.

I hope it will not be so long before Hoffmann gives us a volume on design in color photography.

19 November 2008. I just read this book again. It is more satisfying, informative, and a pleasure to read than I realized the first time through. The second section covers thirteen genres or concepts, each one starting with a delightful essay that I began to look forward to in succeeding chapters. Beginning with a chapter on dealing with cliches and ending with a chapter on eliciting mystical elements from a subject and a chapter on panoramics, he deals with the major philosophical aspects relating to photography in each genre, how such issues have changed through the history of photography, sometimes the relationships to other visual arts, and some reference to major past and current practitioners.

The third section presents fourteen aspects of composing images, from "what is composition" to movement in the image. The prefatory remarks are much more brief than in the genres/concepts section, but are insightful. His approach to composing emphasizes the principles of design and techniques of visualization and thinking to achieve the principles, and less concentration on the elements that one gets from Mante and Freeman.

In all four sections of the book, when he discusses a photograph, he does it better, more thoroughly from a structural point of view, and at a higher level than most any other writing I have seen.

I now feel that this book ranks right up there with Freeman and Mante as coequal in quality, depth, and level of presentation. These are the three strongest books on the composition/design subject in years. If you are interested in analytical, thinking, focussed approaches to making, understanding, and appreciating images, I cannot recommend too strongly owning and reading several times the three books by Freeman, Mante, and Hoffmann.

Only 40 pages of 260 dedicated to digital darkroom... The rest of the book speaks about basics in photography, such as tools and fundamentals, photographic genres and rules of composition... this kind of information is always present in every book of photography...

so, it's not a good book for those who want to learn on black and white photography, but it's useful for those who are begginers in photography...

Black and White is not dead - it has its advantages over the world of color. "The Art of Black and White Photography: Techniques for Creating Superb Images in a Digital Workflow" is a complete and comprehensive guide to the craft of taking photos in the style of black and white. Chapters discuss when black and white should be used rather than color, how to avoid the cliches so often associated with black and white, applying new technology to improve an old art, and much more. For anyone enthusiastic about photography, "The Art of Black and White Photography: Techniques for Creating Superb Images in a Digital Workflow" is a must-have.

Diane C. Donovan
California Bookwatch

When I read the title "The Art of Black and White Photography: Techniques for Creating Superb Images in a DIGITAL WORKFLOW" - I bought the Book considering this subject - DIGITAL WORKFLOW - today the Digital Tools provide many ways to work with Black & white and the Book dedicated only 40 pages of 260 to talk about digital darkroom...also speaks superficialy about this techniques.

In my viewpoint it's not a good book for those who want to learn on black and white photography in a Digital World, but it's useful for those who are looking for a Composition in Black & white and other subjects.

"The Art of Black and White Photography", by Torsten Andreas Hoffman, is the latest Rockynook book that I have read. So far, only one Rockynook title has disappointed me. "The Art of Black and White Photography" was definitely not a disappointment.

Black and white photography has interested me for some time, but I haven't really found the right subjects for it. When I thought I had a good candidate, it turned out to be much better in sepia than b&w. This book went a long way in helping me to understand what subjects woiuld do better in black and white. It also presents a wealth of knowledge about using modern tools (Photoshop CS2 was quoted) to refine images and get the most out of the exposure. The insistence to shoot in RAW was spot on. I learned this the hard way, but if you haven't gone to that exclusively yet, you need to.

While the title of the book implies exclusivity to B& photography, there is still quite a bit of useful information that crosses over to the color world also. Since I plan to keep shooting color and selectively convert to black and white in post processing, I was happy to see this. Every aspect of photography is addressed - landscapes and portraits, motion and still life, day and night exposures, you name it. Extensive sections cover Genres and Concepts as well as Composition Rules. Perhaps most useful to me (and well worth the price of the book) is the last section covering "The Digital Darkroom". I love getting useful Photoshop tips, and this book does not disappoint. Hopefully future editions will also include Lightroom tips.

"The Art of Black and White Photography" is one book that I could not put down once I started reading it, and I cannot wait to apply some of the concepts I learned.

This book has a couple of very positive reviews at Amazon, and then a few not so enthusiastic. If you're tempted to buy it, be sure to (a) think carefully through your expectations, and (b) make an effort to examine the book in advance, best directly in your hand, before you decide to invest in it. The book is not amazing, and you need to judge how the good and bad sides balance wrt. your needs.

"The Art of Black and White Photography: Techniques for Creating Superb Images in a Digital Workflow" is about black and white photography, somewhat less about 'the art', despite the author's obvious intentions. It is not so much about 'superb images', despite the author's obvious opinion about his works. The 'digital workflow' part is a cruel joke.

Why you MIGHT want to read (but not necessarily buy) the book:

1. There are a few interesting, both content- and form-wise images there. You might hope to learn how to compose, shoot, and process such images.

2. The narrative is smooth, understandable, and, most of the time, of a strong personal character, proving the author's emotional involvement.

3. The author goes beyond discussing the technical part of shooting and processing, enriching the discussion with a broader context of references to other photographers and concepts in photography. The book definitely is not the typical 'click this-and-that button' guide through Photoshop.

4. The chapters offer different perspectives on the subject, and you might learn to look at your own picture-taking with a more careful eye.

Why you might NOT want to buy the book (but perhaps skim through it anyway if your library offers this possibility):

5. The graphical material is unimpressive, with vast majority of the images being merely technically correct. The author is incredibly consistent in praising himself for almost every image in the book ("exceptional perspective", "fantastic composition", "that's why the picture is so good", "perfect timing", etc.). However, I find his pictures -- with just a handful of exceptions -- rather dull, boring, and closer to an intermediate classroom exercise than art.

6. The narrative is almost too personal. The repetitive self-appraisal is boring and irritating, especially that the material isn't really stunning. In some places, the author discusses at length how important it is for the image to press the shutter in the unique moment, an ability possessed only by the greatest masters (guess who); some pages later, he'll show you images taken from the knee, again praising himself for the perfect composition. In a few cases, the author admits that the image may look uninteresting and poorly composed, but then, no, it's to the contrary, the composition is perfect, and the image will stay in your memory for long. Well, what stays in my memory are this exaggerated self-marketing. (One of the previous reviewers remarks: "Hoffmann is sometimes overly laudatory about his photos, many of which are outstanding . . . but not all." Yes, he is. Many are not.)
You'll read about how important it is to think about composition before taking the picture, and how patient you must be until you get the perfect shot. In another place, the author shamelessly admits removing irritating details from the image with digital tools such as clone stamp (which traditional photographers might consider a blasphemy), even though the scene is such that he surely could wait a few more minutes to avoid the disturbance. In yet another example he leaves clearly unintentional, disturbing elements without a single comment. (And yes, that composition is perfect, again.) Besides that one case mentioned above, digital interventions beyond basic contrast improvement and such are not discussed (which many modern photographers might consider a serious deficiency). Issues such as ISO vs. tonal range, noise, grain, sharpness, etc. are nowhere subject to the author's comment.

7. The author focuses mostly on composition. The narrative is fairly superficial, however, with important concepts mentioned here and there, but never discussed in depth. In a few (or rather just few) cases, alternative compositions of the same scene are shown, but this sampler it's far from a systematic, broad and deep coverage. Most photographs in this book seem to be merely correctly composed snapshots rather than well planned, designed, and executed pieces of art.
Despite the subtitle, you'll be rather disappointed about the digital workflow part. The last, fourth part o the book (about 20-30 pages) is dedicated to converting digital images to black and white and improving contrast using tools such as channel mixing and masks (for selective corrections). You won't learn much here; besides, this part is already dated even at the date of publication (it covers CS2, with new features from CS3 mentioned, while Photoshop CS4 was released about the date the English edition of the book was published). New tools (e.g., smart objects) useful for processing RAW files within Photoshop are not mentioned. Additional comments referring to digital processing are sprinkled here and there throughout the book, but very unsystematically. In fact, the author is rather chaotic about the technical side of his pictures; for some, he mentions the camera used, for some the lens, for some the focal length, for some the Photoshop tool used. For an art-superb-digital workflow book, a more coherent approach would certainly help.
As to the context part, a great majority of the photographers, artists, poets, and whoever else mentioned in the book bear German names. While it might be acceptable and well-justified for the German edition of the book, I find it just irritating. It gives the unfortunate impression that the author is either ignorant about photography beyond his own country (very unlikely, though) or unreasonably biased. More effort on the author's side to provide a broader and more balanced reference would certainly not hurt.

8. The selection of subjects is rather limited, constrained almost entirely to landscape and modern architecture. Black and white photography is an excellent medium for portraiture, sports, events, and otherwise documentary photography; however, except for a few, rather average portraits, the author clearly ignores anything that would force him out of the apparent uninvolved tourist stance. With literally two, again unimpressive exceptions, you'll find no studio photography here. You'll find absolutely no discussion on setting up and using artificial lighting. There is virtually no discussion of how available (almost exclusively natural) light can be explored to capture the same scene from different perspectives and at different times (of the day, of the year) and thus expose some characteristics of the subject while hiding others.
Another consequence of the subjects limited to landscape and architecture is that most of the photographs have large depth of field and thus give the whole book a rather monotone, flat look. The author fails to note that different depth of field settings help expose some parts of the scene while hiding others, and how blur and bokeh can be used to improve the composition. (I don't recall him ever using the term 'bokeh', for example.)
The chapter on photography of movement is another joke. If anything, it shows the author's inability to go beyond his rather static attitude and produce more dynamic photographs (dynamic precisely in the sense of including movement, not that of tilting the perspective and making the composition less symmetric, a sense the author employs throughout the book). While panoramic formats, both horizontal and vertical, are mentioned (ignoring the existence of tools such as panoramic heads), for a book focusing mostly on composition and layout the lack of discussion of alternative formats (including square, of which no example is given) is also surprising.

9. Last not least, discussion of printing is virtually non-existent. With a 'workflow' in subtitle, the lack of discussion of presentation issues (including printing, but not only) is again a serious omission.

Somewhat uncomfortably, I'm giving this book merely two stars, reflecting my own disappointment and irritation (also with the fact that I did buy and forced myself to read the whole text, a waste of money and time). Since there are other, more positive reviews here, you should carefully consider the deal. The book is superficial, unsystematic, narrowly selective, with mostly boring examples. If you come to learn about composition, consider <a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1933952261">'The Photograph' by Harald Mante</a>, an amazing book by another German photographer (a truly good one). That book is stunning (yes!), and every single photograph there is worth hours of contemplation -- precisely unlike this one.

As from my title, the book has some great information for both the amatuer and professional photographer. However, after some basic introductory information and some basic, but very important composition discussion, the majority of the book is about the author's reasoning behind some of his images. Interesting and insighful but not a book about the 'ART' of black and white photography.
There is too much similarity in his images and discussion of the images. His chapters on the types of photography such as abstracts, surreal and mystical are all identical and the images all look alike. There is not enough discussion of the bBlack and White photograph or its differences with a color photograph.

I find his discussion of the digital darkroom quite minimal. I did not expect, nor want, a lengthy Photoshop class but what is included is very basic and really does not help in making artful black and white images

The actual production of the book is excellent. the printing and imagery is a first class printing job.

The title of the book suggested a book filled with techniques to make black and white photos, but what I valued most from the book were the lessons on composition and imagery. I can tell you, that I am a novice photographer, and the first section of the book almost lost me and I put the book away to begin with. It was technical jargon without a lot of definition. I would recommend jumping directly to section 2 and reading from there, as there are really good lessons in composition and ideas for improving your "artistic eye", irregardless of color or black and white images. The author used great photo examples and explained the images in detail on what works for the image and what does not. Towards the end of the book, the author finally gets into the technical aspects of creating a black and white photo using a "digital darkroom." That dark room, the author assumes that you use Photoshop, but I am guessing the techniques are pretty universal with any software. If I could give half stars, I would probably give 3.5, but I am rounding up based on the lessons on composition... that I thought were very good.

[[ASIN:193395227X The Art of Black and White Photography: Techniques for Creating Superb Images in a Digital Workflow is well organized in easy steps to follow. Has essential information how to use filters effectively and explains how they change the images.
The author gives basic information about how to select a digital camera and how the camera affects the final product and includes on digital darkroom showing step by steps how to change images to get different qualities of gray to black.
The author shows how to balance image and give examples to make sure the person reading the book understands how to show what wants the viewer to see. The book is good to keep handy to check on general information about pictorial composition balancing and perceptive.
In my opinion he needs to update the Photoshop program information to a newer version otherwise the book is well written and has a lot of great information for photographers interested in Black and White photography
C Cavalieri
The Art of Black and White Photography: Techniques for Creating Superb Images in a Digital Workflow

The Art of Black and White Photography
Torsten Andreas Hoffman

This book gets down to the basics when covering aspects of what makes a photo great. Over two-thirds of the book's 35 concise chapters are dedicated to graphic elements in photography and topics such as abstracts, architectural photos, and mood. Additionally important are rhythm, symmetry, and harmony, all discussed in detail here.

It was refreshing to pick up a book in this age of technology that can get away from the digital realm and pick apart the bare bones of image-taking. Only in the final few chapters is Photoshop brought to the picture (pardon the pun) and the fine-tuning methods within the application covered.

I had no idea of how many considerations must be taken into account when shooting black and white photography. The author includes many examples of engaging photographic samples, showing what steps can be taken to improve each photo. This book will help aspiring photographers see the beauty in capturing the essence of a shot, later taking the Camera Raw image into the digital darkroom.