Customer Reviews

Photography: The Art of Composition

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

 

 

Countless books have been written about composition. Many of us go by the basic, "seat of our pants" approach of "If it looks good in the viewfinder, shoot it!" However, Bert Krages, the photographer and attorney, has not given us just a book... he has given us a workbook.

The Book opens with basic Visual Skills information - primarily, the importance thereof. His section about viewing other people's photographs I found useful in not only looking at my own photography, but at others. Perhaps a valuable skill for readers, not only for judging photo competitions, but to help us compare our own work to the masters of the 20th century.

The remaining chapters touch base on the camera as a tool, then it jumps into the exercises. And there is an exercise for darn near everything! I think that is what so fascinated me with this particular book...it is not all concepts, but rather, practical working exercises. The author walks you through everything from points to lines and shapes. Each exercise has subheadings of "About the Genere," "About the Exercise, "Setting Up the Exercise," and "Technical Considerations." In short, everything you could ask for - you just supply the equipment and other materials necessary to make it happen.

The closing chapter is probably one of the most important in the book - "Thinking Like an Artist." About 10 pages, primarily of text, Krages explores how photography has influenced the other visual arts, and the acceptance of photography as an art form. It is a section I find myself reading several times a week, to reinforce some of the other material in the book.

The only negative I can really say about the book is that the photographs appear to be dark and murky, and a book like this really should have contained color images.

While I agree with much that Mr Photo says in his recent review, I think the book would be a good one around which to base a set of exercises in a photo course to help new or intermediate photographers hone some skills in seeing and composing. Or a disciplined new photographer could benefit from going through many of them on one's own. But there are several other books that suggest good sets of exercises.

There are a lot of words in this book. The early chapters and the prefatory sections for each exercise are incitefully written. The captions to many, but not all of the illustrations in this book are helpful in pointing out strengths and weaknesses in some of the photos, but in general, neither the text nor the photos go far to help one analyze a viewfinder image or a photo to understand its visual structure and perceive the strengths and weaknesses in the image.

A signal weakness of this book is its own visual presentation. It is boring to look at and to use. The use of only monochrome illustrations for a book on photo composition is old fashioned, though it may have been a budgetary imperative imposed by the publisher. The poor, low contrast print quality of the photos contributes to the unispiring visual impression.

The title leads one to hope that this book is a comprehensive look at composing photographs. Unfortunately, it is a good introduction only to part of the composition problem.

This is wonderful little workbook for the beginning, but serious photographer, such as myself. The author defines the elements of a compostion and, through exercises, shows how they can be appreciated in order to create an appealing photograph. The introduction, intimidating for the non-artist, leads one to believe that this will be a text on the psychophysiology of visualization. Such is not the case and the remainder of the book is a helpful primer. In addition to composition, the author includes exercises that allow one to estimate, and improve upon, some basic technical skills.

I bought this book over the weekend. I read the first chapter that you can see in the "Look Inside" feature. I was intrigued by the comparison of this book to the theories in Betty Edward's "Drawing on the Right side of the Brain" book. I used Edward's book and it changed the way I draw and create art. I was just like one of her before and after examples. Back to this book. The first chapter, the one you can review for free, was very thought provoking. Most of the photography composition "rules" are adopted from the Graphic Design world. One such rule is the "rule of thirds". These rules help get you away from the beginner composition problems like centering everything in the viewfinder. Once you are more experienced, you create compositions more intuitively. This book helps you get away from these simplistic "rules" and helps you to see and compose pictures naturally. After the first chapter, there were two chapters on basic camera operation, then the bulk of the book was exercises. I didn't find the exercises very useful for me. The book was put together a bit amateurishly. It is all in black and white and is printed on cheap paper. There were no inspirational pictures to prove this theory works. I believe the pictures were more about teaching a point than anything else. The author has a good concept, but fails to put together a very convincing book. I was disappointed and will return the book. I hope the author comes out with a better version of the book and gets some help from a graphic designer.

Where is the 'art' in photography when the typical discussion revolves around technical camera operation? It's right here, in photographer/attorney Bert Krages' Photography: The Art Of Composition, which should be required reading for any photography student. Krages uses the same methods used to teach fine arts to draw important connections between photography and art, providing a group of some sixty exercises which teach readers how to perceive points, lines, shapes and more through the camera's eye.

The book has provided the the type of guidance and insight that I had been looking for since I began photography a few years ago. Even membership in a camera club with active participation in monthly competition did not provide me with the knowledge I was seeking: useful insight and constructive guidance for analyzing, creating and appreciating photographic composition. The author of "Photography: The Art of Composition" weaves together a refreshing combination of exercises, analyses, historical comments, and literate exposition about diverse subjects within contexts that may be photographed readily. The approach works nicely in that I now find myself photographing subject matter analytically and can knowledgeably monitor my personal improvement. I am beginning to reach my goal of producing fine art photographs and thinking like an artist -- which is the title of the last chapter in the book. Buy this book to help guide your personal development, or as a present for a photographer or would-be photographer. Teachers should consider using this book as a text or suggested reference.

Maybe it was just my copy of the book but the images are not very good (fuzzy and flat) and do not reinforce the text.

One particular example stands out. The author talks about removing clutter in a photograph. However, the example is so cluttered and flat, it is difficult to determine what the subject is supposed to be. The text goes on to say "...notice how the flower stands out from the busy background..." . Actually, no, I don't!

There are many thought provoking exercises. And maybe the quality of the photos causes you to look at them a little closer than you normally might be inclined to.

It isn't a bad book. With a little more attention to the images, it could be a GREAT book.

This was a painful read and I'm minimally better for it.

The author breaks the book into several 1-3 page chapters about various
shapes and objects - the goal here being to teach you how to "see" each
object. The concept is unique, but unfortunately the author starts each
chapter with 3 or 4 paragraphs of absolutely irrelevant, useless history
of each shape or object. It was a waste of ink and space that could
otherwise been used for more (and much better) illustrations. Furthermore
if the author had any geometrical or scientific basis for his lessons, it
failed to show through in the book.

Very poor presentation with poorly printed BW images and composition is not fully explored. There are much better books on photographic composition. Skip this one.

Archaic. boring, and limited. Don't bother with this book. It is out of date, it is limited in its scope, and it is not even hardly about composition. Totally cannot recommend this book.