Ever wonder what it would be like to get inside the head of an accomplished photographer as he chooses a subject, works the scene, selects an image, and then edits the result into a piece of photographic art?
As a follow-up to his successful first book Take Your Photography To The Next Level, author/photographer George Barr now applies the practice to the theory. Go along with George as he searches for subjects, sorts out scenes, refines his composition, and then moves from Camera to Computer to edit his images, not only correcting flaws, but making the images match his vision.
You'll see proof sheets and "not quite there" images, and you'll learn tips on image editing from someone who is focused on creating a fine art image rather than mass producing many similar images-often the goal of commercial photographers.
With his friendly, easy-to-understand approach George goes beyond how to edit your images by teaching the whys behind the editing process. This book is certain to help you dramatically improve your own images.
Topics include: Finding photographic subjects Working the scene Practical issues in composition What to change in a captured image How to edit your images-a practical, easy workflow
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About the Author
George Barr is a photographer living in Calgary, Canada. Serious about photography since age 12, working initially with a WWII Zeiss Ikonta in a basement-bathroom "darkroom", he has progressed through medium format, 4x5, and now digital SLR's. He earns his living as a family doctor with a special interest in psychiatry but his primary passion has always been the fine art print.
Major milestones include learning to make quality prints from Fred Picker, learning to really "see" photographs from Hubert Hohn of the Edmonton Art Gallery, looking at Edward Weston prints bare, attending workshops, working with galleries, and being published.
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I love the photographic image, all sorts of images. I love the challenge of making fine images, and the process of creating and editing them. I have been doing this for 49 years.
I was born in Glasgow, Scotland and moved to Canada at age 8, being raised in Edmonton. I wanted to be a physicist and that's how I started at university. I wasn't a very good one, barely graduating - I was spending all my time photographing for the university student newspaper and yearbook and making team and student residence group photos.
Eventually I settled on medicine (mum got her wish after all - hated it that she was right). After radically bringing up my marks I went to medical school at U of Alberta, graduating class of 76. I continued to photograph and even in residency, had a darkroom - no running water, but functional none the less.
Over the years I amassed a large collection of books of photographs and even during periods of not photographing, I continued to study great photographs. With the help of Fred Picker's Zone VI manual, I became a good printer, and from a weekend course on photographic appreciation, learned a lot more about what makes fine images.
I now live in Calgary, Alberta, Canada, 60 miles from the Rocky Mountains, 200 miles from the Alberta Badlands.
About six years ago I started writing about photography, first with my own blog, and then for outbackphoto.com and then luminous-landscape.com
The latter publication led to the owner of Rockynook Publishing contacting me to suggest taking my series of articles and expand it into a book. I was already having some success being published, first in Black and White Photography (U.K.) with an article on my badlands photographs, and then a portfolio of my industrial work in Lenswork 57. I've also been in B&W, Focus and Outdoor Photography (U.K.)
I have always enjoyed writing. For years I had a patient newsletter in which I would explain diseases and tests and whatnot and seemed to have some talent for explaining things clearly.
In my blog, although sometimes writing about technical matters, my first love was the art in photography, commenting on subjects like where to point the camera and how to compose, which images to select and how to assess one's work.
Although it is true that I earn my living as a family doctor, I spend almost as much time doing, thinking about and writing on photography.
I'm told I have a good eye. I have an understanding of how composition works rather than knowing a list of rules and I can explain it to you.
I have gone through most if not all of the problems that photographers can face in 40 years, failures, rejections, discouragement, dislike of one's own work, and for the most part I have come out the other side, and think I can help you through that journey.
Perhaps most importantly, I write from the point of view of someone who cares only about the final image, not about efficiency or maximum output, a failing in nearly all the books written by commercial photographers. Should you want to edit 2000 images of the same girl in the same red dress, then read those books, but if you have one image you care about and want to make it the best you can, then I think I can help, right from before you even discover the scene until you make the last edit to your image.
I have written 3 books so far.
My first is:
"Take Your Photography To The Next Level"
This book is about the art of photography - there isn't a single f stop or shutter speed in the whole book. It takes you from seeing to working the scene, onto composing and through the mental struggles we get up to, and to selecting our best work. Finally it gives you a frame work upon which to judge your work, not because having a rating is of the slightest value other than to point out how you might go about improving your work. I use 30 years of my work as examples and to illustrate points. The basic premise is "Practicing what you are good at is human nature, but not terribly effective. Identifying our weaknesses and working on them may be painful, but even modest improvements usually make huge differences to our work.
This is a book for all photographers who care about their craft or art. It won't explain how to use your new camera, but it might help you aim it in a good direction.
This book has been translated into German, Italian, Swedish, Polish and two different versions of Chinese.
My second book is:
"From Camera To Computer"
We considered calling this "A Look Over My Shoulder" and rejected it. When it came time to translate it into German, we went with the "Over My Shoulder", albeit in German, and the book has sold 10X as well.
The idea of the book is to take the theoretical knowledge of the first book and apply it to working the scene in a series of example sittuations. I show you my failures on the way to success, and then show how I go about editing the captured image(s) to make the final photograph. There is a short Photoshop primer at the back of the book explaining how to use the small fraction of Photoshop that I use to edit my images. All but a few of the images were not in the first book. This is the field manual to the text book of my first book.
The third book is:
"Why Photographs Work"
Sarkowski's "looking At Photographs" was an important book for my development as a photogapher, and I felt there was a place for a modern equivalent, explaining why photographs work, with the emphasis on image rather than process, recent rather than historical and including colour. I felt I could not write faithfully about why a photograph is successful when it is one of my own images - perhaps I could write about what I did to try and make it successful, but that's not the same, so STEP 1 was to use images of other photographers. I decided to limit it to photographers who are living.
I proposed the idea to my publisher and Rockynook was very enthusiastic, so I bit the bullet and started selecting images I'd like to write about, then tracked down the photographers and asked for their participation. I had little to offer except some exposure, hardly a carrot for the more famous on my 'want' list. I was blown away by the positive response to my request. From an anticipated 40 photographs and photographers the book soon expanded to 50, and as you will note, eventually 52.
Some of the photographers are extremely famous, from Pete Turner to John Sexton, From Beth Moon to Elizabeth Opalenik. Also included are some names you likely have never heard of (yet), simply because I thought their photographs wonderful. Photographers have come from six different countries and involve a large variety of subjects and processes, a number of the images pushing even my comfort zone in terms of subject and style, yet still wonderful. There are still lifes and landscapes, nudes and flowers, people and architecture, wildlife and abstract.
There are 52 wonderful photographs, each on its own page. There are essays on why I think each image works. Each photographer has donated their image, and their time and writing, without payment. They explain what made them take the image and briefly, how. There are short biographies by the photographers, including their major influences. At the end of the book is a list of other photographers you might want to check out, suggested by some of our 52 photographers.
As I write this, I have only seen the book as a pdf but it's coming, within the month(I'm writing this 24 Oct. 2010). It's going to be beautiful, affordable, and I think helpful, for both photographers and lovers of photography.
I was born in Glasgow, Scotland and moved to Canada at age 8, being raised in Edmonton. I wanted to be a physicist and that's how I started at university. I wasn't a very good one, barely graduating - I was spending all my time photographing for the university student newspaper and yearbook and making team and student residence group photos.
Eventually I settled on medicine (mum got her wish after all - hated it that she was right). After radically bringing up my marks I went to medical school at U of Alberta, graduating class of 76. I continued to photograph and even in residency, had a darkroom - no running water, but functional none the less.
Over the years I amassed a large collection of books of photographs and even during periods of not photographing, I continued to study great photographs. With the help of Fred Picker's Zone VI manual, I became a good printer, and from a weekend course on photographic appreciation, learned a lot more about what makes fine images.
I now live in Calgary, Alberta, Canada, 60 miles from the Rocky Mountains, 200 miles from the Alberta Badlands.
About six years ago I started writing about photography, first with my own blog, and then for outbackphoto.com and then luminous-landscape.com
The latter publication led to the owner of Rockynook Publishing contacting me to suggest taking my series of articles and expand it into a book. I was already having some success being published, first in Black and White Photography (U.K.) with an article on my badlands photographs, and then a portfolio of my industrial work in Lenswork 57. I've also been in B&W, Focus and Outdoor Photography (U.K.)
I have always enjoyed writing. For years I had a patient newsletter in which I would explain diseases and tests and whatnot and seemed to have some talent for explaining things clearly.
In my blog, although sometimes writing about technical matters, my first love was the art in photography, commenting on subjects like where to point the camera and how to compose, which images to select and how to assess one's work.
Although it is true that I earn my living as a family doctor, I spend almost as much time doing, thinking about and writing on photography.
I'm told I have a good eye. I have an understanding of how composition works rather than knowing a list of rules and I can explain it to you.
I have gone through most if not all of the problems that photographers can face in 40 years, failures, rejections, discouragement, dislike of one's own work, and for the most part I have come out the other side, and think I can help you through that journey.
Perhaps most importantly, I write from the point of view of someone who cares only about the final image, not about efficiency or maximum output, a failing in nearly all the books written by commercial photographers. Should you want to edit 2000 images of the same girl in the same red dress, then read those books, but if you have one image you care about and want to make it the best you can, then I think I can help, right from before you even discover the scene until you make the last edit to your image.
I have written 3 books so far.
My first is:
"Take Your Photography To The Next Level"
This book is about the art of photography - there isn't a single f stop or shutter speed in the whole book. It takes you from seeing to working the scene, onto composing and through the mental struggles we get up to, and to selecting our best work. Finally it gives you a frame work upon which to judge your work, not because having a rating is of the slightest value other than to point out how you might go about improving your work. I use 30 years of my work as examples and to illustrate points. The basic premise is "Practicing what you are good at is human nature, but not terribly effective. Identifying our weaknesses and working on them may be painful, but even modest improvements usually make huge differences to our work.
This is a book for all photographers who care about their craft or art. It won't explain how to use your new camera, but it might help you aim it in a good direction.
This book has been translated into German, Italian, Swedish, Polish and two different versions of Chinese.
My second book is:
"From Camera To Computer"
We considered calling this "A Look Over My Shoulder" and rejected it. When it came time to translate it into German, we went with the "Over My Shoulder", albeit in German, and the book has sold 10X as well.
The idea of the book is to take the theoretical knowledge of the first book and apply it to working the scene in a series of example sittuations. I show you my failures on the way to success, and then show how I go about editing the captured image(s) to make the final photograph. There is a short Photoshop primer at the back of the book explaining how to use the small fraction of Photoshop that I use to edit my images. All but a few of the images were not in the first book. This is the field manual to the text book of my first book.
The third book is:
"Why Photographs Work"
Sarkowski's "looking At Photographs" was an important book for my development as a photogapher, and I felt there was a place for a modern equivalent, explaining why photographs work, with the emphasis on image rather than process, recent rather than historical and including colour. I felt I could not write faithfully about why a photograph is successful when it is one of my own images - perhaps I could write about what I did to try and make it successful, but that's not the same, so STEP 1 was to use images of other photographers. I decided to limit it to photographers who are living.
I proposed the idea to my publisher and Rockynook was very enthusiastic, so I bit the bullet and started selecting images I'd like to write about, then tracked down the photographers and asked for their participation. I had little to offer except some exposure, hardly a carrot for the more famous on my 'want' list. I was blown away by the positive response to my request. From an anticipated 40 photographs and photographers the book soon expanded to 50, and as you will note, eventually 52.
Some of the photographers are extremely famous, from Pete Turner to John Sexton, From Beth Moon to Elizabeth Opalenik. Also included are some names you likely have never heard of (yet), simply because I thought their photographs wonderful. Photographers have come from six different countries and involve a large variety of subjects and processes, a number of the images pushing even my comfort zone in terms of subject and style, yet still wonderful. There are still lifes and landscapes, nudes and flowers, people and architecture, wildlife and abstract.
There are 52 wonderful photographs, each on its own page. There are essays on why I think each image works. Each photographer has donated their image, and their time and writing, without payment. They explain what made them take the image and briefly, how. There are short biographies by the photographers, including their major influences. At the end of the book is a list of other photographers you might want to check out, suggested by some of our 52 photographers.
As I write this, I have only seen the book as a pdf but it's coming, within the month(I'm writing this 24 Oct. 2010). It's going to be beautiful, affordable, and I think helpful, for both photographers and lovers of photography.
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
36 of 37 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Examples Version 2.0,
By Conrad J. Obregon (New York, NY USA) - See all my reviews (VINE VOICE) (TOP 500 REVIEWER) (REAL NAME)
This review is from: From Camera to Computer: How to Make Fine Photographs Through Examples, Tips, and Techniques (Paperback)
"Examples: The Making of Forty Photographs" by Ansel Adams is one of the great books of photography. In it the noted landscape artist described the decisions he made from idea to print in creating some of his greatest photographs. "From Camera to Computer" may be the equivalent for the digital age. In it, Barr describes many of his own decisions in creating fine art prints from selecting a subject to printing the image and even whether to include it in a portfolio.Most chapters are almost free standing essays that take a single image and follow the author's processes from capture to print. A few of the essays are slightly different as in his description of uses for the Lensbaby and his recommendations for photographing on a European vacation. The book concludes with a description of Photoshop tools that the author acknowledges is not a complete guide but rather an indication of the tools that he uses to create his style of image. Each chapter starts with a listing of the major points covered. After discussing a subject, the author highlights a teaching point, and the chapter usually ends with the author's thoughts on the image. This book is not appropriate for beginners. It assumes one knows how to use a camera and image processing software proficiently. Instead it deals with the kind of higher level problems that photographers intent on creating art are concerned with. For example the author recommends working the subject and taking a range of images to insure one will have something with which to work back at the computer. He describes how moving the camera even a few inches can capture a different image. His processing of images in Photoshop is beyond just general tonal and color control. He applies tools like curves and dodging for local adjustments on an almost minute scale to create the finest possible images. Along the way, stitching, focus blending, high dynamic range and similar topics are discussed. Although some of author's images are of landscapes, much of the work presented seems to concentrate on form rather than content, like close-up photographs of rusty machinery. Although images that seem like abstractions are not my favorites, I still found many useful lessons in his descriptions of creating these images. Images used for illustration may be downloaded from a website if the reader wishes to follow along with the text. Reading the essays is like having a conversation about an image with an articulate top notch photographer. The tools he uses are not as important as his overall approach. I noticed that while I was reading the book, I began to work the images that I was processing far more than usual, thanks to Barr's urging not to accept anything less than the best. On the other hand, I must confess a little feeling of inferiority as a photographer, for it was clear that while I considered myself a competent photographer, my approach to images was not on Barr's level. Perhaps as I read the essays again, slowly, I can become more like him.
31 of 35 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Delivers on Half of Its Promise,
Amazon Verified Purchase(What's this?)
This review is from: From Camera to Computer: How to Make Fine Photographs Through Examples, Tips, and Techniques (Paperback)
If the marketing copy and text on the back cover is to be believed, Mr. Barr's book shares his insights on how to create fine art photos by following some detailed editing examples (in addition to working the scene, etc.). Yet only 8 of the 23 chapters include detailed workflows of his edits. (One can add 2 more chapters to the total -- 7 and 11 -- because they include some processing details.) And the author does not take the description of his workflows far enough; he's often content to explain the main steps in his edit of an image, and then skims over the rest of his detailed ("minor" as he calls them) edits to show the final image. I've seen a few other authors include a screen shot or two of their entire layer hierarchy for an image, and including something similar would have added more value to the book, allowing the reader to get a better grasp of just how much work is involved in making one of Barr's fine-art images. That would be more educational than simply stating that a number of minor edits and masks were applied to the image.A few chapters look as though they were filler, in an attempt to make the book approach a saleable length. For instance, why include a chapter on the Lensbaby when Barr isn't particularly enamored of the accessory? Is the chapter included because the Lensbaby is a current fad in photography? And Barr feels necessary to include short chapters on a number of subjects -- people photography, portraits, a European trip -- that little of value to the book. They cause the book to loose its focus [no pun intended]. Lastly, I continue to try to impress on Rocky Nook to be more conscientious with their copy editing. (Tghis is the fourth Rocky Nook book that I've read and each has had its share of glaring typos or grammatical errors.) There's no excuse for a misspelled page heading for an entire chapter (Fruitr when it should be Fruit.) And the first figure in the Appendix spells histogram as historgram, for example. Would I recommend this book to other photographers? Perhaps. I did find some useful information in the book, which is why I decided not to return it. There's some valuable advice on working a scene that you don't find in many other places. Just don't expect to find complete answers on how to create a fine art print.
6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Pleasant reading that helps,
Amazon Verified Purchase(What's this?)
This review is from: From Camera to Computer: How to Make Fine Photographs Through Examples, Tips, and Techniques (Paperback)
The author delivers a lot of insight and jovially talks/walks you through the various aspects of his work-flow.Bottom line, looking at pictures I processed during the period I was reading the book, I see some improved results. There is much to be learned from this book regarding the appropriate philosophical approach to photography that seems to suit both fine art photographers like the author and amateurs like myself. What I did certainly not enjoy is the low level of editing the book received. I red other "Rocky-Nook" books, and they also suffered from miss-numbered illustrations, but this volume excels in giving the feeling that you are reading a not proof-read copy: talk about pictures that did not make it into the book and even whole paragraphs and phrase sections that have been duplicated. Though I am not a "Photoshop" user, all the techniques with the exception of the commercial tools easily translate the the tools I am using. More important than these details are the ideas related to the goal and spirit of the processing.
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