Colorado Photography by Chester Bullock

When I picked up The Photograph: Composition & Color Design, it felt and looked like a textbook (and it was shrink-wrapped like one). But the title sounded good, and the author is well known in Europe as an author and instructor for many years. These inferences led me to make a bad conclusion as to the worth of this book to me.

I should have focused on the term “color design” in the title. This book is very technically oriented. While it does have over 600 photos and 160 diagrams (all very well done mind you), it was difficult for me to make sense of much of it. I get the full impression now that this book is geared for students of design and not a budding amateur. In reality, the concepts are just too much for the average layman (and I am not an uneducated person). It felt like I was being told, in very technical terms, why I like the color interaction or composition of certain pictures. I really don’t need to know why, in my opinion. If I like something, I like it – simple as that.

If you are a student of design or photography, this book would make sense to you. It is unfortunate though that The Photograph: Composition & Color Design is the first book I cannot recommend for an amateur like myself.