Wildflowers of the Southern Appalachians: How to Photograph and Identify Them [Paperback]

Kevin Adams (Author), Martha Casstevens (Author)

Product Details

• Paperback: 257 pages
• Publisher: John F Blair Pub (March 1996)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0895871432
• ISBN-13: 978-0895871435
• Product Dimensions: 8.4 x 7.4 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.3 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,812,053 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Wildflower photos sets new standard for genre, September 12, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Wildflowers of the Southern Appalachians: How to Photograph and Identify Them (Paperback)

Adams and Casstevens combine top-notch botanical briefs for each of the featured species with superb photographs. The botanical data is sufficient for appropriate identification and interesting notes about the plants are plentiful. The authors are commended for recognizing the importance of the composition of the photographs. They are not only useful for identification purposes, they are each masterpieces of photographic art. Adams teaches how to create similar photographs. Clearly this book was not just thrown together, but was carefully crafted by geniuses.

5.0 out of 5 stars A treasure for wildflower photographers, July 15, 2011

By 

A. Rose (NC, USA) - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Wildflowers of the Southern Appalachians: How to Photograph and Identify Them (Paperback)

This book is quite a gem if you are enjoying wildflower photography and looking for some solid tips how to get better pictures. I'm not sure it is still in print, but you can get it used fairly easily. I ordered it as a used book and it came in great condition. You can tell it is not a recent title as the technical photography tips are for 35 mm film SLRs, sounding a bit outdated in a time when people are more likely to use digital cameras. However, many of the tips are timeless and should work with any camera. For example, it talks about how to deal with wind, what the best compositions are for certain flowers, which time of day they look most photogenic etc. Some of the tips are funny but oh so true, like "don't try to photograph when you need to go to the bathroom."

The back cover claims it is also a guide to over 300 wildflowers but a quick count of the plant descriptions only brings me up to 171 species shown in photographs. The difference is in the descriptions which talk about species related to the ones photographed. With thousands of plant species in the Southern Appalachians, the number of plants presented is limited, but they include some of the endangered and endemic species that characterize the unique flora of this area. The images are organized by flower color, starting with blues and purples, then pinks and reds, oranges and yellow, and ending with white and green flowers. The index contains both common and scientific names. The plant descriptions are nice and include flowering/fruiting times, habitats, and the occasional drawing. But I feel for in-the-field plant identification there are probably better suited field guides. While the photographic plant portraits are beautifully composed and artistically pleasing, some are missing identifying information such as foliage. There is a trade off here between artistic expression and showing everything you need to identify a plant in one picture.

What makes this book special for photographers though is the large number of wildflower photography tips scattered throughout. In addition to the general tips given in the introductory section in the first 50 pages of the book, almost all the plant descriptions have a short photography tip associated with them. Another thing I like about the book is that it talks a bit about environmental and conservation concerns, too, concluding that "no photograph is worth the destruction of a wildflower to get it." It is obvious throughout the text that the authors care about the wildflowers in their natural environment and not just about getting good-looking pictures of them.

Overall, this looks to be a highly enjoyable book, but it is more likely to end up in the "photography corner" of my bookshelf than among my wildflower field guides.