Customer Reviews

Designing a Photograph: Visual Techniques for Making your Photographs Work

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Designing a Photograph isn't going to spoon feed you information and teach you technical skills. The emphasis of the book is to teach you how to see when you're photographing. The idea is to explain the different aspects of a photograph to you, visually show you with an example, and then have you explore using a "visual exercise" (a shooting assignment). One previous reviewer was unsatisfied with the book, claiming "We apparently must figure out the results for ourselves." Well that is the whole idea of the book. You will never learn how if someone always tells you what to do and you never learn the process. As a photographer myself who has worked for other photographers, I learned much by listening to their advice and watching how they worked. I truly learned by using what I heard and saw and keeping that it mind while I was shooting on my own.

For those interested in photography, the Applied Design section gives you a glimpse of what's involved in being a professional photographer. When you work in photography for a living, not everything you shoot is what you would choose to shoot for yourself. Many of the photographs are from jobs, especially in this section. They are there to illustrate a point. If you find them boring, I suggest you avoid photography as a career because you would most likely not enjoy it. It's not all as glamourous as most people believe.

In short, if you are looking for a book to give you rules to follow like a Kodak guide to taking better pictures, this is not for you. It is not a technical guide that will teach you how to operate your camera. There are plenty of books out there to do that. The focus of this book is to teach you the process of designing a photograph and to learn to see on your own.

If there were a "Truth in Book Titling Law", Bill Smith would have received a maximum sentence. This book does not teach you what its title purports.

Once a photographer has learned how to manipulate the controls on his camera for proper exposure and focus, he wants to know how to capture the world around him with a camera in a way that will convey it to others in the way that he comprehends it in his mind. This process requires the photographer first to see in his mind's eye what it is he wants to photograph, be it object, relationship or emotion. Next the photographer arranges the elements onto film or charge coupled device. Most people can learn how to make an exposure that people will recognize as part of the world. The quality of previsualization (to use the great photographer Ansel Adams' word) and composition is what makes the difference between a snapshot and art.

The title of this book suggests that it will help you improve the quality of your photography. However, most of the language in this book is vague generalities that defy the reader to extract a useful lesson.

Oh, there are some almost useful sections. The chapter "Look before You See" suggests a number of photographic exercises that could be useful. For example Smith advises that you shot a roll of film on a single subject. "Vary the camera angle, the lens, the distance from the subject, and the focus...." But then what. It would appear that we will automatically extract something from what is on film that will help us learn. But he doesn't tell us how varying the camera angle will effect the photograph. We apparently must figure out the results ourselves. Without a little more guidance, we could well end up with 36 shots of nothing satisfactory. I wondered if Smith was saying that a person can't be taught composition but can only learn by trial and error. If that's so, why buy a book?

I'm not suggesting that the exercise approach is not one way to learn to be a better photographer, but it needs more explanation. If you're interested in a book that takes this approach, I'd suggest Freeman Patterson's "Photography and the Art of Seeing".

But most of the book is even less useful. In the section on lens selection, Smith tells us the choice of lens is determined by subject, use of the photograph, the effect required and physical space limitations. But he doesn't tell us which lens is best for which subjects. Instead he tells us "learn and test the limitations and capabilities of each lens."

Smith gives us a photographic history of his development as an artist that I might have found interesting if he had used it to instruct rather than say, "I began a career as a corporate photographer".

He finishes his book by with a chapter called "Applied Design" which is supposed to give us insights into specific kind of shooting. The seven pages devoted to interiors look like a real estate sales brochure. He makes five learning points like "Decide whether to style the room" and "Choose your camera format". But he doesn't tell us what choice of format is appropriate for what situation.

When I review a book that I can't recommend, I usually recommend another that I think is good. However since most of my work is in landscape and nature photography, I don't have a general composition book to recommend. But I'm certain that even if you were not interested in nature photography, you would learn more about composition from "John Shaw's Nature Photography Field Guide" than you could ever learn from "Designing a Photograph".

The first edition of this book is one of my two favorites on compositional matters, the other being Michael Freeman's Image. The first edition stands out among all other books on composition and design in that Smith presents composing from the point of view of Gestalt visualization, presented theoretically by Richard Zakia in Perception and Photography and its update, Perception and Imaging.

The value of this second edition to me is to supplement the first edition with the new photographs. I don't think the second edition stands well on its own.

What the first edition did much better is mainly in the captions to the photographs. In the first edition, Smith discussed at length the visual aspects and structure that were present in each photo to explain how these aspects caused the eye to move throughout the frame. The captions in the second edition are much less devoted to the structure of the image and more like so many others' books in talking more about how he came upon the opportunity to take the image.

The text in the first edition is also more deeply written, while that of the second repeats the first, or cuts some good material.

I have spent several years, intermittently, finding what has been written about composition in photography and other two-dimensional visual arts, and my conclusion to date is rather grim. Using various databases, I have found several dozen books going back to the late 19th century. In general, the best writing on composition is out of print by many years.

I have not been able to find any U.S. art program that teaches composition or design as a stand alone subject; it is almost always blended into drawing classes as exercises and critiques. I'd like to hear that I am wrong about this. Composition is still taught as its own subject in several curricula in Germany.

For photographers, especially amateurs who do not undertake long training programs, a thorough look at the elements, principles, history, and techniques of composition with lots of diagrams, decently sized illustrations of good, bad, and almost, and many comparative problems is long overdue.

The approach that Smith took in his first edition is a significant component of part of what I have in mind.

My recommendation is that if you buy the second edition, then seek out the first to read over and over again with the second edition along side.

I briefly browsed the book in local book store. I found a lot of catchy phrases and ordered one from Amazon. Now I really regret that I did. I found that most of the photographs the author used in the book didn't really bear much relationship with the concepts he was trying to convey. It is like his words and images are seperate. Instead, the author was basically trying to self critique, or rather, self appreciate his own images. Maybe I am missing something, but more often I fail to observe the important elements the author was trying to bring my attention to. I have to say, most of the images in the book are quite uninteresting and boring, just like several other reviewers have pointed out. Maybe they are perfect brochure type of images, they just didn't inspire me. When I see some nice photographs, often my reaction is, wow! how did they do it and how can I shoot something like that. I found none of that in this book. I bought quite a few books on photography, this one so far is the only one I am disappointed with.

Too many photography books consist of the photographer spouting off about what lens was used and how they lucked out on being in the right place at the right time.

This book is different. The author walks through the design process, talking about what to think about and how it applied to a particular shot. What is even better is he isn't afraid to show the shots that almost work but don't quite. You can see the results of several attempts and make up your mind for yourself as to whether the shot he likes best is the same one you'd pick.

Very thought provocative with lots of self assignments to help you try out the concepts.

When you shoot a photograph, whether it be a person, still life or scenic, what goes through your mind? How much thought do you give to the process of creating the image before pressing the shutter?

These questions occured to Bill Smith of Freehold, a commercial photographer who realized that some people don't give these aspects of creativity much thought. His book, "Designing a Photograph: Visual Techniques for Making Your Photographs Work," was created to impart the experience gathered as a working professional, presenting the neophyte with some common-sense advice garnered from trial and error.

Smith's 1985 work has just been re-issued in a revised editiion, updated to include changes in technology that have occured in the last 16 years, as well as more photographs by the author.

Smith said he tackled the project because he felt there was a void in the market for books that can explain the process of designing photographs "in a way which is not only palatable but digestible."

The book is peppered with small text boxes that feature "assignments" for the reader to try in an effort to develop a more studied eye. "All those assignments are what a photographer does unconsciously anyway, but unless you really have an awareness of what you do when you shoot, you don't necessarily think about it. I'm sure when you're taking a picture, you don't think, 'Well, maybe I should move in a little closer' or 'Maybe I should change my camera angle,' you just do it," he said.

I've read dozens of books on photography and this one has to be the worst one. Why? As a aspiring photographer, I wanted to improve my compositional skill. That's why I bought this book. Bill may be a professional photographer (not a great photographer though IMHO), but he's not a good instructor or writer. This book failed to be an instructional book because details are held back.

For example, he said he learned a great technique by shooting both B&W and color film for the same subject, but he didn't mention at all what technique he learned!!! Why mention it if he's not going to share it? All the technique he talked about in the book are so basic and vague that I get more confused after reading this book. I remembered I learned a lot from John Shaw's and Art Wolfe's books (two of the best and great nature photographers in the world). After reading this book, my mind has become confused. So, I'm going to stop reading it after finishing half of it.

There is some useful information about composition and design in the first section, but the bulk of this book is full of generalities and common sense information that won't be of much use to the aspiring photographer. A better option is John Freeman's "The Photographer's Guide to Composition."

During the 15 years since the first edition of Designing a Photograph was published, the field of photography has become more competitive, with much more sophisticated standards.

This revised and updated edition of the classic manual provides all the information photographers need to bring their art to the next level. Filled with practical, real-life examples and excellent step-by-step exercises, this valuable illustrated reference demonstrates techniques of composition, color, lighting, perspective, and much more.

With completely updated information and more than 150 brand-new photographs, Desiging a Photograph is easily one of the most important additions to every photographer's library.

The perfect resource for amateurs, students, and professional photographers, Desiging a Photograph is filled with outstanding step-by-step illustrations and clear, informative text.

What makes a photo work? What are the elements that catch the viewer's eye? Bill Smith, a working photographer, has captured this information in a great book. Through examples of Smith's work, he explains what went into each of the photos, what makes them work, and how the technique can be adapted by the reader. There are a number of books on creative techniques in photography, but the fact that this work is now in its second edition indicates that it has resonated with photographers. The high quality printing adds to the value of the book.