Customer Reviews

Composition Photo Workshop

5 star:		(11)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

The author uses clear language and excellent photographic examples to open your eyes to what makes a good composition. For years, I kept buying more and more expensive cameras hoping they help me take better pictures. What I really needed was to understand what makes good composition. This book reads easily and the pictures make it a pleasant learning experience. But the most striking result of reading this book is amazement at how much there was right in front of your eyes and you did not know or paid attention to that can make difference between a snapshot and a great picture.

As a photography educator for over 20 years, I have been looking for a book on composition that is not a technical monologue, but a guide that will lead the emerging photographer toward better image making. Too many books speak in overly analytical terms when trying to describe good composition. It is extremely difficult to apply overly strict theories in the field while shooting.
This book feels like you are out on a day trip shooting with the author/photographer. It is filled with great ideas, but also when and where to use them. The reader is given practical information to answer the real life questions of photography.
The `workshop' aspect of the book provides the reader with assignments designed to test and expand upon the techniques they read in the book. These assignments answer the age-old photography question...what should I shoot next? It encourages the reader to get out and shoot.
In addition, the ability to use the publisher's website to upload images created from the assignments and then receive feedback, is invaluable. This book really fits the subheading of `Develop your Talent'. I am currently recommending this book to all my students, whether beginning or advanced.

Since moving to Alaska two years ago, I've taken up photography. The abundant wildlife and breathtaking natural scenery moved me to purchase a digital camera and start shooting. I had no formal training, but figured, much as with automobile repair, if I could read about it, I could figure it out. I read a variety of websites, participated in discussion forums, took many photographs, and generally have been trying to figure things out myself. With this background, picked up this book with interest and curiosity.

Composition is divided into eleven chapters, breaking things down into background, compositional elements, photographic styles and tips for improvment. The first chapter goes over a variety of background bits, talking about the the history of photography, sight and optics, eastern & western approaches to design and layout, and the interrelation between these items which is what makes up composition. The book clearly states that it comes to the discussion from a 'western' point of view. With the foundations properly set, the book delves into meat of the topic. Framing is tackled first, with discussion of shapes and thematic elements, shapes, the rule of thirds, symmetry and other topics explored. Next, focal depth and shutter speed, how lens selection determines output characteristics and photographic capabilities, ISO speed selection, and on. The quality and types of light are examined, and how to best make use of what is available at any given time. Two chapters are spent on color and black & white photography. Filters are examined for the positive effects they can have in bright and contrasty situation, and when they can be beneficial to filter out or highlight a particular portion of the spectrum. While some will argue that postprocessing and editing on the computer afterward render all filters other than ND and polarizing ones useless, I appreciate that the information hasn't been discarded onto the scrapheap of history. The final three chapters of the book deal with portraiture, landscape/scenic photography and tips on improving your photos further through post-processing.

I found Composition to have a nice layout (which it should, considering the subject matter); it is full of useful information and generally an enjoyable read. I had no problem picking it up and reading through a chapter here and there, then getting back into it later. At the end of each chapter, there is an assignment which directs you to apply the topic covered in the chapter in a variety of ways and try to get a better feel for what they are discussing. In addition, there is an accompanying online forum where you can upload the photos you take for the assignments, discuss them with others, and see how other readers approached the topics. A brief exploration of the website took a while to find the proper place to go to upload and see the images others have captured. As of this writing (10/1/2007), the forums there do not appear to be terribly active, with perhaps 11 photos uploaded to the busiest assignment; as the book was released recently, I'm sure the activity will pick up.

Composition is written for someone with an SLR camera - people with simple point and shoot cameras will gain some knowledge from the book. To be able to take full advantage of the book should have an advanced P&S camera - one that falls into the super-zoom or bridge-camera categories - if not a full dSLR setup. (This isn't necessarily a complaint about the book, per-se, but hey, we non-dSLR owners are photographers too!) With the stiff competition, many new models and rapidly falling prices in recent years for dSLR cameras, this book could act as the missing manual. While it won't tell you what all the switches do on your new Nikon D80 or which lens is best for your Canon 400d, it goes a long ways toward giving you a better understanding of how to make use of the capabilities of your camera, and will help train your eye to find those details, the shapes, colors and lighting which will produce outstanding images.

A very good book for the serious novice and realy fun to read. Books on Photography are essential for the beginer.I found most of them have at least one or two new things to teach. They can't replace the classroom but for the money they are a great deal. Don't expect to become a great photog just because of a book. You will always find something that you can try to put to practice. Highly recomended. Practice practice practice and Have Fun.

This is one of dozens of books that purport to convey the secrets of composing photographs, and actually go no further than relatively elementary information. It's not bad for someone starting out.

In discussing compositional elements, points are dispensed with in less than half a page. Lines a bit more. Use of the image space pretty much stops the "Rule of Thirds." The only other technique for organizing the image space is what the author refers to as the "Golden Rectangle," without providing any guidance on how one might use this. In other words, the compositional formula that one comes away with is "Determine the focal point and place it if at all possible according to the Thirds rule." The concept of harmony is related to bananas and basketball, rather than being one end of a continuum, the other end of which is contrast. It is impossible to judge if lines are harmonious or contrast with each other from this level of treatment, let alone any other set of elements or colors.

Composing is about the analytical, visual structure of the image - recognizing the structure before releasing the shutter and analyzing it afterwards more thoroughly. To do that one has to know the vocabulary and practice with the insights. I know this sounds boring. To paraphrase J. Itten, "If you find you cannot make masterpieces without knowing the theory, perhaps it is worth your while to learn the theory." Then and only then does one know what one is doing and know when and how to step outside the guidelines for unusual visual impact and conveyance of the photographer's message.

Once one has been making images for a few years, more a more advanced approach can yield deeper understanding of image structure faster than continuing at the level of so many of these books. To date, the finest out there is Michael Freeman's "The Photographer's Eye." Others are mostly out of print, but worth the trouble to find used or through interlibrary loan programs. Some suggestions would be Harald Mante, Bill Smith, Maitland Graves, Richard Zakia, and a number of books on painting. Unfortunately, there is no single volume that does the job to a totally satisfying degree. So it behooves one to keep looking, but Freeman is the best single volume out there.

Today's digital cameras are programmed so "anyone" can take well exposed pictures of most anything. But "exceptional" photos require good composition - and composition, contrary to what many books seem obsessed with, isn't just the "rule-of-thirds" and avoiding distracting backgrounds. This book covers much more - with clear explanations and illustrations, and a photo assignment exercise at the end of each chapter to actually train that brain - with a website to post the results. Ever wondered why you like some photos so much more than others? Just the insights into how light and different colors affect balance and mood explains a lot.
Topics beyond the usuals of subject placement and leading lines and framing include: perspective and how our eyes see; depth of field and how to control it with focal length, F-stop and ISO and why; shutter speed - to stop motion or blur and when; light - quality vs. time of day and direction and intensity; color - its science and control and balance; black and white; portraits - framing and posing; and improving travel, still-life and macro photography.
All topics are so clearly explained and illustrated that the brain behind the camera, if willing, can be trained to make a difference.

I was quite impressed with this book. I've been very actively taking digital photos for 4 years now and am reaching for the intermediate level of proficiency. The first reason I would recommend this book is that it went far beyond the "Rule of Thirds" and leading lines on into color, framing, lighting, placement, etc., etc. There's a wealth of good information and ideas supported by beautifully composed photo examples. Secondly,staying in keeping with the "Workshop" portion of the book's title, at the end of every chapter is an assignment the reader can embark on to REALLY learn what he/she has just read. The assignments are highly creative and fun. And finally, taking this learning experience yet one step further, the reader is directed to send the results of the assignments to a website where other readers are sharing as well. A great deal can be learned from looking at their submissions and reading reviews. I also discovered other links in this website that take you into a very exciting world of sharing and learning more about digital photography. This book is a keeper!

How a photo is composed can determine what it communicates, and while Photoshop and after-shot programs can help render images with greater precision, they are no substitute for decent composition. That's why any college-level class on photography and any library strong in photography references needs COMPOSITION PHOTO WORKSHOP: it shares all the elements which make up a masterful design, from color and lighting to design and symbolism. There are different techniques for portraits, landscapes and still lifes alike: COMPOSITION PHOTO WORKSHOP covers them all in great detail.

Diane C. Donovan
California Bookwatch

If you're a beginner, this book is good enough, since you can learn photography from ground up. But if you're an skilled amateur wanna learn composition in order to advance to another level, I do not recommend this one. The book talks too much about the basic knowledge about the camera, but skips the real skills about composition, such as shape, line, light, texture and so on.

Personally, the only composition book I recommend is Photographic Composition by Ben Clements and David Rosenfeld (1979)([...]). This book teaches you the aesthetics about photography, and only costs you several bucks to get a secondhand one.

Unstoppable woman running at full gallop into focus and into the future.
A page-turner. Articulate, pleasant reading. Not too much jargon
A buffet of eye candy and brain candy and camera candy
Opened my eyes and enhanced my views in many ways
So many avenues and so many approaches expressed
Provides skills to make me and my camera more versatile and powerful
A ton of info in one book. A treasure chest of tips, tricks, and fundamentals.
Sort a personal guide, cicerone, to a world of photography that is becoming more complex and more simple at the same time
A nice addition to my art library.