Chester Bullock Photography

Exposure Photo Workshop: Develop your digital photography talent, by Jeff Wignall, is part of a new series of books by Wiley. Suitable grouped as Photo Workshop, these books add a modern twist on the classic photography topics we all hold dear. Topics like exposure, composition, lighting, portraits, macro and more, this series will be applicable for years to come.

The reason they will remain applicable is that they have been written specifically for the digital age. In this book, Exposure, the author goes to great lengths not to identify his equipment (at least the body), telling the reader that it doesn’t matter what your gear is, the concepts are the same. One thing I particularly liked about the book (and the whole series follows this pattern) was that, at the end of each chapter, the reader is given a “homework” assignment based on what they just learned. Following this, they are encouraged to upload the photo to a central site where all readers of the series can post and critique photos. For someone too intimidated by places like the dpreview forums, this can be an invaluable experience.

This book covers all the usual aspects you would expect, from light controls, aperture versus shutter speed, depth of field, low light, flash, etc. It even went so far as to talk briefly about off camera flash. There was a lengthy discussion about taking photos of neon at night, which I might use to start a photo book project.

All in all this book is well worth the $29.99 cover price ($19.79 at Amazon) and I look forward to reading more from this series.

“The Art of Black and White Photography”, by Torsten Andreas Hoffman, is the latest Rockynook book that I have read. So far, only one Rockynook title has disappointed me. “The Art of Black and White Photography” was definitely not a disappointment.

Black and white photography has interested me for some time, but I haven’t really found the right subjects for it. When I thought I had a good candidate, it turned out to be much better in sepia than b&w. This book went a long way in helping me to understand what subjects woiuld do better in black and white. It also presents a wealth of knowledge about using modern tools (Photoshop CS2 was quoted) to refine images and get the most out of the exposure. The insistence to shoot in RAW was spot on. I learned this the hard way, but if you haven’t gone to that exclusively yet, you need to.

While the title of the book implies exclusivity to B& photography, there is still quite a bit of useful information that crosses over to the color world also. Since I plan to keep shooting color and selectively convert to black and white in post processing, I was happy to see this. Every aspect of photography is addressed - landscapes and portraits, motion and still life, day and night exposures, you name it. Extensive sections cover Genres and Concepts as well as Composition Rules. Perhaps most useful to me (and well worth the price of the book) is the last section covering “The Digital Darkroom”. I love getting useful Photoshop tips, and this book does not disappoint. Hopefully future editions will also include Lightroom tips.

“The Art of Black and White Photography” is one book that I could not put down once I started reading it, and I cannot wait to apply some of the concepts I learned.

On a recent trip to the grocery store, I decided to pick up a magazine. I do this once in a while, most typically when I am travelling. I know I need to learn more about photography though, and magazines are a more conducive format for reading at home. Much better than breaking out the laptop or anything like that. So I looked at the selection. As I recall, there were probably 5 or 6 titles on the shelf. For some reason, Shutterbug stood out. Well, not just “some reason”. The cover was intriguing, and the big focus of the month was on lighting, which I have been wanting to know more about. And this is where they kind of lost me.
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I picked up Bryan Peterson’s “Beyond Portraiture”, not because it was written by Bryan (that alone would have been a good reason), but because I have been looking for help on some specific things where portrait photography is concerned. I didn’t really find what I was looking for, but as with all of his books, I did get a lot of helpful insight into making better photographs.

Before I get to what it was I was looking for, I want to tell you what this book does bring. Aside from what you would come to expect (discussions on lighting and exposure), the author starts off by getting you comfortable with talking to people, helping them to understand what you are trying to achieve, and making them into willing participants. For someone like me, this was a very valuable section. From there, the book moves into considerations in actually working with people, and the different types of people you might encounter. Some example of corporate report types of work are included in the book, which I found interesting given how much I follow the work of notable Colorado-based photographer David Tejada.

After the sections on dealing with people, the book then moved into a discussion about light (and I think Bryan is a master at this). From there we get an in-depth look at composition. This was particularly useful, as composition considerations are definitely different for people than they are for landscapes, etc.

The last section was perhaps one of the most useful for me, covering different techniques to digitally edit photos. As long as I have been using Photoshop (since 1995), you would think that I would know a lot more than I do. But for me it has always been a tool for editing web images. I have always known the power that Photoshop has, but never taken the time to learn more about it. The edits that Bryan presents are relatively simple and could be immensely useful if you don’t already know them.

All in all, I highly recommend this book. It didn’t have “posing” information that I have been looking for, but I got far more out of this book than that one subject is worth. Pretty sure I can find that info somewhere else.

With this photography thing, I sometimes I feel like I am cramming a lifetime of learning into as small an amount of time as possible. But I am learning, which is always a good thing to do. I hope you are continuing to learn as well.

Photography forums are littered with posts from rookies asking about filters and other effects. Almost immediately someone will post “that’s easy to do in Photoshop,” without a link or any other explanation. For a Photoshop AND photography rookie like myself, that makes it doubly frustrating. Luckily, help is just one book away.

“The Photoshop Show Starring Russell Brown” is a timeless book with techniques that will help you regardless of which Photoshop version you might have. As someone who has only used Photoshop to edit images for websites, this book was a helpful glimpse into the full power of what the program offers. Brown covers such topics as Channels and Blending, Layer Masks, Filters and Patterns in a way that makes it very easy for the novice to ‘get’ the concept being illustrated. The enclosed CD offers sample files for all of the exercises, which is invaluable for retaining the skills this book teaches. Several chapters are also devoted to transforming an image to create a completely new work. Again, all samples are included on the CD so that you can get the most out of the exercises.

I still consider myself a Photoshop novice, but this book has enabled me to do much more with photos than I could before I read it. I highly recommend it for photography and Photoshop novices alike.

Sometimes you take a picture and you know in your mind that it could have been different or better if you had taken it on a different day or at a different time. Lighting can play a huge role in what your picture conveys. And this is where “Creative Photoshop Lighting Techniques” comes into play.
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Take Your Photography to the Next Level: From Inspiration to Image, by George Barr, is a collection of the most helpful postings from his blog over the past few years. I rank this book right up there with the works of Bryan Peterson in terms of it’s importance to photographers in general. In fact, I would declare this a must read.

Mr. Barr has taken the liberty (well advised in my mind) of editing his prior posts so that they are more current or relevant for this book. I had never heard of him before, but the author is very impressive in terms of how he is able to “see” a great photo in what seem like ordinary or common objects. I do believe that, in the course of my learning to take better pictures, this is the hardest thing to do.

One of the more impressive things about this book is how the editor, author, and Rocky Nook were able to take the blog postings and meld them into a cohesive book. It follows a fairly structured order, and includes excellent photographic examples along the way. I also particularly like how the author intentionally stayed away from mentioning specific settings and (most of the time) gear used to make certain images. In a few sections of the book, it is pointed out clearly that it is the person taking the photos that is more important than the gear being used, and I agree completely (he does cover the gear he uses at the back of the book).

One other very useful sections is how to deal with rejection and criticism and the whole mindset of taking pictures. I know a few people that could apply the principles of that section (did I mention Barr is a doctor) in their photography or other aspects of their life. Very good stuff, and just another example of how Barr is able to relate to the casual and serious photographer alike.

I could go on and on about this book, but you really should get a copy for yourself. It is outstanding!

HDR (high dynamic range) images are starting to take the photography world by storm (at the time of this writing, the HDR Flickr group has over 18,000 members). If you ask a room full of people what HDR is, you get a wide range of answers, and typically they are all partly correct. Simply put however, HDR imaging is the process of creating an image that encompasses a wide range of exposure values. This allows the resultant image to be nearly all encompassing in every detail. HDR Imaging has, until very recently, been the purvey of Hollywood graphic and special effects artists. “The HDRI Handbook” by Christian Bloch helps bring this exciting arena to everyone else.

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My background in photography is that of a complete layperson. I started out in middle school with the Kodak equivalent of a Polaroid. Eventually I graduated to a 35mm point and shoot. Following that was an Olympus D-490Zoom. All cameras that didn’t allow for a lot of tinkering with settings. Since that was all I knew, I still took pictures that way when I moved on to the more capable Canon Powershot G5. It has full control over aperture, f-stop, etc. But I was very intimidated by trying those kinds of things out. Over the years I had managed to get a few pictures that I was really proud of, and even some that garnered compliments from total strangers.

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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.
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