A Short Course in Photography (5th Edition) [Paperback]

Barbara London (Author), Jim Stone (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 013110201X | ISBN-13: 978-0131102019 | Publication Date: July 30, 2002 | Edition: 5

This easy-to-use, inexpensive book introduces readers to the fundamentals of photography and suggests ways in which they might create photographs that have meaning. Oriented toward traditional black and white photography, the book also explores digital techniques and web photography resources, equipment, cameras and camera accessories, the exposure and development of film, and the making and finishing of prints. All aspects of the process are explained and illustrated clearly in two-page spreads, each of which addresses a self-contained topic. For those who don't know anything about photography—but want to learn, and anyone who wants to take better pictures than they do now.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Jim Stone turned to photography while studying engineering at MIT. His photographs have been exhibited and published internationally, and collected by the Museum of Modern Art, Boston’s Museum of Fine Arts, the Smithsonian American Art Museum, and the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, among many others. Six of his books, A User’s Guide to the View Camera, Darkroom Dynamics, A Short Course in Photography and A Short Course in Digital Photography (both with Barbara London), Photography 9^th Edition, and Photography: The Essential Way (both books with Barbara London and John Upton), are in wide and continued use for university-level courses, and there have been three artist’s books published of his photographs, Stranger Than Fiction (Light Work, 1993), Historiostomy (Piltdown Press, 2001), and Why My Pictures are Good (Nazraeli Press, 2005).

 

Stone has received awards from the Massachusetts Arts Council, The New England Foundation for the Arts, The San Francisco Foundation, and the National Endowment for the Arts. He was the editor of Polaroid’s Newsletter for Photographic Education, and taught formerly at the Rhode Island School of Design. Currently he is Associate Professor of Photography at the University of New Mexico.

--This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

If you don't know anything about photography and would like to learn, or if you want to make better pictures than the ones you make now, A Short Course in Photography will help you. It presents in depth the basic techniques for black-and-white photography:

* How to get a good exposure
* How to adjust the focus, shutter speed, and aperture (the size of the lens opening) to produce the results you want
* How to develop film and make prints

Most of today's cameras incorporate automatic features, but that doesn't mean that they automatically produce the results you want. A Short Course in Photography devotes special attention to:

* Automatic focus and automatic exposure—what they do and, particularly, how to override them when it is better to adjust the camera manually

Some of the book's highlights include:

* Getting Started. If you are brand new to photography, this section will walk you through the first steps of selecting and loading film, focusing sharply, adjusting the exposure, and making your first pictures. See pages 4-9.
* Digital Imaging. In one sense, digital imaging is just another tool, but it is also an immensely powerful technique that is changing photography and that will empower those who know how to use it. See pages 152-157.
* Projects. These projects are designed to help you develop your technical and expressive skills. See, for example, page 128 or 173.
* Making Better Prints. Additional information about how to fine tune your prints by burning in and dodging (darkening or lightening selected areas), and by cropping the edges to concentrate attention on the portion of the scene you want. See pages 114-117.
* Types of lenses, types of film, lighting, filters

Photography is a subjective and personal undertaking. A Short Course in Photography emphasizes your choices in picture making:

* How to look at a scene in terms of the way the camera can record it
* How to select the shutter speed, point of view, or other elements that can make the difference between an ordinary snapshot and an exciting photograph
* Chapter 9, Seeing Like a Camera, explores your choices in selecting and adjusting the image, and covers how to photograph subjects such as people and landscapes
New to this edition are

* Using a Digital Camera. How to make photographs digitally from start to finish
* Up-to-date information on Health and Safety precautions in the darkroom
* Technical updates throughout
* Many new photographs and illustrations

This book is designed to make learning photography as easy as possible:

* Every two facing pages completes a single topic
* Detailed step-by-step instructions clarify each stage of extended procedures such as negative development and printing
* Boldfaced headings make subtopics easy to spot
* Numerous photographs and drawings illustrate each topic
Acknowledgments

Many people gave generously of their time and effort in the production of this book. Feedback from numerous instructors was a major help in confirming the basic direction of the book and in determining the new elements in this edition. At Prentice Hall, Kimberly Chastain and Bud Therien provided editorial support. Joe Scordato supervised the production of the book from manuscript to printer. Nancy Wells redesigned the book and helped make it even more user friendly. If, as you read the book or use it in your class, you have suggestions to make, please send them to Photography Editor, Prentice Hall, 1 Lake Street, Upper Saddle River, NJ 07458. They will be sincerely welcomed.

Jim Stone
Barbara London

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Product Details

• Paperback: 187 pages
• Publisher: Prentice Hall; 5 edition (July 30, 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 013110201X
• ISBN-13: 978-0131102019
• Product Dimensions: 10.7 x 8.3 x 0.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.3 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (24 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #133,517 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Good introduction for beginners, October 20, 2009

By 

Sally Bozzuto (Pittsburgh, PA USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: A Short Course In Photography (Paperback)

I am a teacher of photography and have looked at a number of different photographic text books and this is one of the best I have seen for beginners. One of the strongest aspects of this book is its copious illustrations and photographic examples that reinforce the concepts it is putting forth. While no book is perfect, I challenge any of the critics of the book here to come up with a better text that is as easy to read and as clearly laid out as this book.

I would agree that this book does not have a lot of information about how to use a digital camera - most of the digital information is about editing and printing photographs. I can see that would be a problem for someone wanting to learn just from this book about how to use their specific digital camera, but to be fair digital cameras can be so different from one make or model to the next and with the rate of change of all things digital it is very challenging to set anything down in a published text that will really be true for every digital camera. I do have to supplement the information in this book with information about that, but this book does an excellent job of explaining all the basic technical information about how a camera works which is completely applicable to all cameras, digital or otherwise.

7 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Students beware..., August 31, 2009

By 

Michael R. Wallin "mwallin88" (Camarillo, CA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: A Short Course In Photography (Paperback)

This was the required book for a beginning photography class I'm taking at my local junior college. It's a good book for a beginning photographer and explains all of the basics of a camera and its parts, how to take photos and how to develop them. It has one chapter somewhat dedicated to digital photography so if you really want to learn more about the digital aspect you will need to check out some other titles. Ok, now students beware...if you were required to get this book for your class and will be taking the online quizzes you will need an Access Code. If you're lucky and your school is generous then they will provide one to you. If you're not so lucky, like me, then be prepared to pay an additional $33+ from Prentice Hall just to get the code so you can access the quizzes...complete ripoff in my opinion. I don't know, maybe I'm just old school, but didn't taking tests in school use to be FREE??? The "greedy" fee from the publisher for the access code is the only reason for the lower rating, besides that the book is good.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Better Than I Thought, August 18, 2009

By 

Somewhere Learning - See all my reviews

This review is from: A Short Course In Photography (Paperback)

The book is very helpful for the novice photographer. It was an assigned book in a photography class I took for the summer. I thought it would be a ho-hum book but it was better than I thought. The book includes photo examples of exposures and setting which is very helpful. If you are just starting out this book should be just what you need. Even if you have been taking good pictures for sometime by pure luck you will be able to fine tune your skills with the help of this book.