Lens on Life: Documenting Your World Through Photography [Paperback]

Stephanie Calabrese Roberts (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: May 18, 2012 | ISBN-10: 9780240821146 | ISBN-13: 978-0240821146 | Edition: 1

Mostly candid and spontaneous, documentary photography serves to preserve a moment in time. In Lens on Life, celebrated documentary photographer and author of the best-selling The Art of iPhoneography: A Guide to Mobile Creativity, Stephanie Calabrese Roberts, inspires you to explore, shoot, and share documentary photographs, guiding you as you define your own style. Illustrated with the author's striking artwork and diverse insight and perspectives from seasoned photographers including Elliott Erwitt, Elizabeth Fleming, Sion Fullana, Ed Kashi, John Loengard, Beth Rooney, and Rick Smolan, this book will sharpen your artistic intuition and give you the confidence to take on personal or professional documentary assignments. Full of advice that will challenge you and strengthen your photography, Lens on Life shows you how to capture an authentic view of your world.

Product Details

• Paperback: 192 pages
• Publisher: Focal Press; 1 edition (May 18, 2012)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 9780240821146
• ISBN-13: 978-0240821146
• ASIN: 0240821149
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 0.9 x 9.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.5 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #139,142 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

3 of 4 people found the following review helpful

3.0 out of 5 stars A book with soaring highs and a mix of lows September 23, 2012

By Masa

Format:Paperback

There are parts of this book that are remarkably well done. First, I think that the layout of the pages is quite nice, well organized, and places the photos in large, easy to see, boxes. Second, there are parts of this book that are brilliant, such as the first part of "Get Inside the Mind of a Documentary Photographer". It provides insights into a number of different photographers and goes into how they approach their work. Each one has some different perspectives.

Some parts were hard to digest, in that there are many places that the "documentary" photographer is not capturing what exists, but what the photographer cajoles out of the scene. And while the book mentions that there are people who do not believe that a picture stands by itself, but rather has a description that states what the photographer sees, there's one picture where the photographer makes up the caption. One wonders whether accurately capturing the subject or provoking a reaction out of the audience is more important. More precisely, does the phrase "documenting your world" about being accurate or about being an artist?

The second section, "Stretch Your Creativity" has a mix of material that is thought provoking.

Then pages 90-117, the book hits a flat spot. It's out of place, and a sign that the book could have used some more direction to "narrow the subject",

As the book wraps up, there is a mix of great advice mixed up with a travelogue. I think that it would have been stronger to pick one or the other, but the cross between the two made watered it down in both directions. It was hard to decipher if the book's providing direction or a narrative.

Overall, I think that the book has a nice nature to it. It is easy to pick up and read a story or two. I wonder, however, if the book could have been stronger with fewer pages and more focus.