Art of Nature Photography [Hardcover]

Niall Benvie (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: July 2001

A colour illustrated photography guide which focuses on the photography of wild life. It contains information and techniques for capturing images, including advice on lighting and composition. It also offers guidance on the subsequent enhancement of the images through the use of computers and digital manipulation.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Niall Benvie is recognized internationally in his field as a top nature photographer and writer. He is based in England. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 160 pages
• Publisher: David & Charles (July 2001)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0715309676
• ISBN-13: 978-0715309674
• Product Dimensions: 11 x 8.4 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.1 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (8 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #3,499,140 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

20 of 21 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Good Supplement, October 3, 2001

By 

Conrad J. Obregon (New York, NY USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Art of Nature Photography: Perfect Your Pictures In-Camera and In-Computer (Paperback)

I can't recommend this book as the only book to read for a beginning or intermediate nature photographer. It just doesn't have enough on fundamental techniques, although there are good tips sprinkled throughout the book. For a book that starts with fundamentals, like the whys and wherefores of exposure, and covers the gamut to photographic vision, one need to go to a book like John Shaw's Nature Photography Field Guide. But this book makes an excellent supplement to a book like Shaw's. When Benvie discusses exposure control he assumes that you know how light meters work and how exposures are calculated. He discusses when he uses spot, center weighted or matrix metering for a picture, and exposure compensation.

Benvie's pictures are beautiful. He concentrates a little more on wildlife then landscape but addresses both areas. Sometimes he tells you a little more than you can probably use. He gives a lengthy description of how to construct a floating hide (that's a blind for us Yanks) that I read with interest although I was certain I would never build such a contraption. Then when I looked at the pictures taken from his hide, I began to reconsider.

The most significant thing about this book for me is that it is the first one to address the connection between picture taking and digital picture making. Increasingly I find that even the best custom developers and printers cannot turn my shot into my vision as well as I can in the digital darkroom. As more and more photographers who are more than just snap-shooters learn this, given the prevalence of computers, digital cameras and the availability of photographic adjustment software at all skill levels, this link will be more important.

Not that Benvie teaches how to transform a picture into our vision digitally. For that you need a lot more detail. (I recommend "PhotoShop 6 Artistry: Mastering the Digital Image" by Barry Haynes.) But he tells you enough to give a toehold for further exploration. I also found his description of how he handled specific photographs in PhotoShop to be very useful for planning my own work.

If you've got the fundamentals down, and want to improve your nature photography, this book should be a great help.

9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars An Inspiring and Informative Guide to Nature Photography, June 5, 2004

By 

Timothy Kearney (Haverhill, MA United States) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Art of Nature Photography: Perfect Your Pictures In-Camera and In-Computer (Paperback)

Niall Benvie's THE ART OF NATURE PHOTOGRAPHY is both informative and inspiring. Benvie believes that photography is an art, but nature photographers are artists in a different way because they are more preoccupied with capturing the subject at hand rather than expressing the self. The book includes excellent tips on preventing mistakes before the shutter is released-not an easy feat for a person involved in nurture photography. He offers basic advice about composition, lighting, flash, and the like as well as tips for active subjects (animals, weather, etc. have no respect for photographers as anyone who has attempted to photograph outdoors can attest to). While the book is a godsend for film photographers, he also includes detailed information for digital users which makes the book useful to photographers using both formats. Since people purchasing the book from Amazon will not have the opportunity to see all the sumptuous photographs in this book, believe me when I tell you that the photographs alone are awe inspiring and could lead a reader from the couch to the field in no time.

Perhaps what makes Benvie's book unique is his support for the amateur, which is most likely the customer who will purchase the book. While Benvie believes that professional photographers make significant contributions to nature photography, Benvie also believes that amateur contributions add a great deal as well since amateurs are less interesting in pleasing clients and more interested in presenting a vision of the natural world to others. Certainly Bevie's book will help amateur photographers who hope to do just that-present nature in all it's glory through photography.

9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Great Teaching Book, January 16, 2002

By 

Bruce Appelbaum (Yorktown Heights, NY USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Art of Nature Photography: Perfect Your Pictures In-Camera and In-Computer (Paperback)

Many books on outdoor/nature photography are simply a showcase for the author's photos and a bragging exercise in the gear he/she uses.

Benvie takes a more open approach -- almost giving the store away. Skipping over the most basic elements of photography, he provides practical advice on technique and creative vision. He isn't shy about using digital processes to enhance images -- not adding or subtracting visual elements, but manipulating the image so that it represents what the photographer saw, overcoming the limitations of film and photo paper.

Highly recommended. And his photographs are exceptional. Kudos to his publisher for the high quality printing.