Customer Reviews

Creative Nature & Outdoor Photography, Revised Edition

5 star:		(41)
4 star:		(15)
3 star:		(9)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

Somewhere along the line between beginner and expert most photographers decide that they want to be more creative. It is to this audience that Brenda Tharp had addressed her work. But one question this book raises is whether you can teach someone to be creative. The author believes the answer is yes, although she acknowledges that it takes a lot of work on the part of the photographer.

Tharp begins and ends the book by telling you that the secret to creativity is learning to see. But as you go through the book some of the chapters on subjects like light and composition and perspective sound remarkably similar to a lot of other photography books that are concerned with technique rather than creativity. Tharp's method is to give you a rule like "simplify" and then to tell you how to simplify. She does this well and the pictures that she uses certainly show her creativity, but it's hard to make the connection between these rules and developing our creativity.

I wish she had spent more time on telling us how to see because I think she is on the right trail here. But if you speed down the highway too quickly you might miss it, which would be a shame. Assuming you can teach creativity, Tharp makes a decent try of it, providing the reader is willing to work at making the connections to seeing.

There are many approaches to teaching how to be photographically creative. In "Fine Art Nature Photography: Advanced Techniques and the Creative Process" Tony Sweet presents us with a series of pictures and a narrative for each that explains what he was trying to achieve with the photograph and what techniques he used to achieve it. In "Creative Landscape Photography", Niall Benvie talks about the different subject matter one may encounter, like wilderness, and then talks about what that subject means to him and what techniques he uses to translate what he sees and feels into a photograph. And my favorite photography book, "Photography and the Art of Seeing" by Freeman Paterson, in a very touchy-feely work, provides a number of unusual exercises that are designed to teach a photographer how to see.

None of these books actually teaches creativity (although for me, Paterson comes closest.) Instead they show creative work and the considerations that the authors had in creating that work. Whether any method works in developing creativity is an open question. If it can be developed, which authors' approach will work best will depend on the individual reader. A serious photographer will want to try them all until he or she finds one that works for him or her. Tharp's book is certainly one that ought to be examined in this difficult search.

If you are looking for a book to improve composition and develop you own style, this is a very good book with great example pictures. It talks a lot about methods you need to consider in making taking interesting picture that will give the "wow" effect. It includes discussion on techniques such as the rule of thirds (contrary to what another reviewer says), balance, and framing your pictures. The focus of the author is to get you to look for ways to create a mood, design a theme or tell a story with your pictures.

The book falls short with techniques. The books primary purpose in discribing technical aspects is to define what the equipment and settings will have on the picture results. It describes techniques such as the use of a wide angle or telephoto lense and the effects of the equipment on the picture, how to use light for more dramatic effects, shutter speed impacts, panning and focusing to emphasize a subject with the background out of focus to eliminate the clutter(this is called bokeh although not mentioned in the book). The book falls short in the technical area because it talks only about film, use of filters and developing film techniques. There are many techniques available for the digital photography that that can do a lot with the picture once loaded into the computer and use of filters for digial photography (some references say) can be reduced to a poloarized and UV filters. Changing ISO settings, adjusting white balance, and correcting light problems with software (versus using a neutral desity filter)are not discussed.

If you are looking to improve your picture composition and ideas to be more creative with your pictures, I recommend this book. If you are looking to understand technical terms, digital camera equipment, and software techniques to make adjustments to your pictures, this IS NOT the book for you.

This book is worth buying for the inspiring photographs, although the text is a bit uneven, explanations are occasionally vague, and the content is rather similar to other books on creative photography.

I prefer John Shaw's Focus on Nature: The Creative Process Behind Making Great Photographs in the Field which is longer, more detailed and seems more articulate. However I own both books.

To take one example: Brenda Tharp recommends that plants be photographed from ground level, so that we are looking horizontally or slightly upward at the subject, which is separated from the background. John Shaw gives the same advice, but only as an option. He also demonstrates the possibilities for an image looking directly downward: a stunning masterful image of a green expanse of leaves contrasted with rich red flowers, seen from directly above like a carpet.

Brenda Tharp's book is more instructional, shorter, and perhaps a bit more dogmatic than John Shaw's. Which is best for you will depend on your own level of skill and awareness in photography. I suspect Brenda Tharp's book is based on a photography class/workshop - it has explicit lists of photographic exercises. It does help you focus on your photographic goals. The main message of the book is a good one ("What are you trying to say in this photograph?"). It's on my shelf and I refer to it occasionally.

It almost feels as if some of the detailed information has been held back from the book, so as not to devalue the content of classes/workshops. for example the author mentions that she has a checklist that she runs through when photographing a landscape, but she doesn't share the list with us.

I quibbled with some of the technical statements in this book, and some of the assertions about composition seem too fluffy (borrowed from art theory?). But it is quite stimulating all the same.

Brenda sums up her philosophy of photography by saying that "you make a great picture with your soul, not your eyes". I tend to agree with her. Her book covers the areas of light, design, composition, color, and technique. These subjects are well presented and best contemplated and incorporated into one's own interpretation of nature and outdoor photography. One of the best things she points out is the importance of capturing the essence of your subject, something a lot of photographers seem to overlook. A thoughtful book that was a pleasure to read.

I have read this book 2 times already and is one of those photography books you just can't put down. You could read it cover to cover in one sitting. Awesome color images that are truly inspiring to the photographer at all levels of skill. Tharp's skills and professionalism really shine in this book. She really hits a chord with her creative approach and is supported by wonderful color images. I can't wait for her next book. Highly recommended!!!!

My copy of Brenda Tharp's book is dog-eared and plastered with Post-it notes. A top-notch, world-class travel and nature photographer - as well as a fantastic instructor at BetterPhoto.com, Brenda covers everything you need to know in this beautiful and eye-opening book. You'll want to start making travel plans the minute you finish.

Brenda's goal is to help you expand your vision and discover the deep wellsprings of creativity within you - and she succeeds. In plain English, she describes the ingredients that go into every great photo and helps you learn how to see.

Her work is meticulous and lives up to a very high standard. If you feel like you understand the technical side of photography but struggle with the artistic and creative, this book will be a godsend!

Excellent book that combines not only beautiful images, but also valuable technical information that is easy to understand. The book is very well organized and covers a wealth of information from the basics to some very interesting and unusual techniques for creative photography. This book goes beyond the usual landscape photography book. It will give you lots of ideas to make your photography more meaningful.

I found this book to be a good guide in helping to see the various oppurtunities that a given scene can give you as a photographer.
The book requires you to know your equipment pretty well, as she dosen't really elaborate on the technical side of things.
Other than that, I found the book interesting and intreguing, but I will probably need a second review as I take her tips to practise. Plus for interesting excersizes tips and ways to see differently and original ways of using teles/macros and multiple exposures.

The colour theory was new for me and very helpful, complementing colours, colos that draw attention and how we preceive them is something I will use in my photography in the future.

A wonderful book that hits the mark on what it was made for, this is about the "feel" for photography, not the technical side of things.

This book is sort of a "how to see creatively" kind of book. It has decent photos and gives a nice theory behind seeing pictures. My main two problems with the book are the following:

1) Despite basically trying to teach composition, no compositional art terms are ever mentioned (ie, rule of thirds, etc).

2) None of the photograph captions (besides a handful in one of the chapters about shutter speed) show any sort of shot information like shuter/aperture, and only some show focal length.

This book is not designed to be a technical book, so if you need to learn how to use the camera or learn about lenses, depth of field, or what aperture/shutter settings to use for a given composition, you won't find it here. On the other hand if you'd just like a book with decent nature photographs, and what is essentially a pep-talk throughout the text, this one will fit that bill. It is essentially a beginner's introduction to nature photography composition, I believe.

There is another book on amazon that I also owned called "Learning to See Creatively", and though it did not deal strictly with nature photography, it seemed to be a bit more experimental and pushed you to actually be more creative in your compositions. It also has all the lens/aperture/shutter setting information in the caption for every photograph.

This book never fails to open my eyes wider on each reading and get me to see things in a different way. As a photographer I am experienced enough to get the technical aspects of a picture right but this book has helped me see patterns, textures, and lighting opportunities where I might have just noticed the subject without appreciating the aspects that make a photograph really special. It's not a kodak series book where it tells you everything you need to know about photography but then I doubt the absolute beginner is the audience this author was writing for. The quality of the photographs are worth the purchase price alone.