Customer Reviews

Quality in Photography: How to Take, Process, and Print Excellent Photographs

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Do you suspect there are photographic 'best practices' out there that would enable you to make your finished photographs better? Would you like 2 very accomplished and successful photographers to help mentor you through the trial and error as you fine tune your own procedures. If so, then "Quality in Photography" by Roger Hicks and Frances Schultz is for you.

It provides a structured path towards achieving overall excellent results. It examines each node in the process of making a picture, where your choices either improve or degrade the quality of the finished print, providing background information to enable informed decisions. This linear approach ensures continuous improvement with confidence, and minimizes backtracking. The authors are unafraid to go out on a limb and discuss their own personal preferences, providing plenty of examples of their own work -- successes as well as learning experiences! Though compact and concise, its scope includes key criteria on camera gear, film and paper selection, choosing darkroom chemicals, whether to do-it-yourself or use commercial labs, print mounting, composition, and much more. Generous, up to date references are provided on detailed advanced techniques which are interesting, but outside the scope of this volume. The author's methodology is reasonable and efficient, and lays groundwork for readers to build upon, although some sections would have benefitted from additional detail from the authors experiences.

For photographic technical artisans the process of trial and error may be an end in itself, and many advanced photographers have already settled on procedures which meet their demands. For the rest of us...I strongly recommend reading "Quality in Photography."

If you know a tripod will add stability to your camera, that a larger negative (say 4"x5") contains more information than a 35mm negative, and such sage advice, save your money. Instead consider a book by Galen Rowell or John Shaw. This book belabors the obvious for all but a beginner or the beginning intermediate photographer. Actually expected much more from this writer. But if you are a beginner, go for it. A good photo guide from Kodak or National Geographic will contain more useful information. His adulation of a particular brand on 35mm camera (Yahica/Contax)gets in the way of the reader in this writer's opinion.