Customer Reviews

Black & White Photography: A Practical Guide

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Steve Mulligan has published a couple of books on photography, however "The Practical Guide" is just that. It is written with a leaning toward large format work and nature photography, however the information is applicable to all film formats and types of photography. A beginner to photography would find this book helpful, but it will be most useful to someone who has some experience and wants to move away from "snapshots" and toward photography as fine art.

Mulligan's description of how to apply the Zone System to film exposure and film development is easy to understand and to apply. His description of the technique that he uses to print fine art photographs using a split-contrast printing is also well done. You should read this book if you are serious about Black and White photography as art.

As with most black and white photographers, I have read (albeit in bits and pieces for the most part) many books on black and white photography. The difference between those and Steve Mulligan's book, is I read it cover to cover, and not only learned alot of great ideas, but ACTUALLY ENJOYED IT! Although his main interest appears to be geogolical landscapes, the principles apply to any facet of B&W photography. Mr. Mulligan describes what works for him, in terms even the hobbyist can easily understand. He also describes what doesn't work, and why, in a self-depricating way that makes him human, rather than a "guru". When you are finished reading, you feel like you can actually produce beautiful photographs. You don't have to be a friggin' genius, reading through a series of books laden with graphs of logarithmic curves and graphs (sorry Ansel), or feel like your studying Euclidean geometry (props to Minor White, the authors favorite photographer... but have you tried to read his book on the Zone System? No wonder he taught at M.I.T.). I am pleased to highly recommend "Black and White Photography: A Practical Guide", which is exactly as the title states that it is. Kudos to Steve Mulligan!

I have a lot of photography books. I shoot 35mm digital, 6x7 color film and 4x5 black and white. I was looking for a book that went into using the Zone System, but better than the classic Fred Picker book: The Zone VI Workshop, and with many more photo examples than the Chris Johnson book: The Practical Zone System. This is it! This is by far the best book I have found for explaining how to apply the Zone System to my methods of shooting. It is not just good at this either, as there are chapters on Composition and Darkroom as well. The book is a collection of beautiful work by Steve Mulligan and Steve is excellent at explaining his procedures. I highly recommend this book!

This is GREAT book... lot of information; magnificients photographs; easy to read and to understand... I was having so much trouble to "visualize" the "zone system"... now I GOT IT!!! Thanks Mr. Mulligan.

This book has some great information in it. Some info is for people with a dark room, which does not apply to me.