Photo Club

Photojournalism: The Professional's Approach is a large book in more ways than one. Sure, it's a hefty book at 512 pages, but it also has another kind of weight: the weight of responsibility. Photojournalism as a practice has an accountability that goes beyond judgment and values; the photojournalist becomes our eyes to the world, and must try and capture only the truth and not impose his or her own judgment on an event.

Photojournalism, now in its sixth edition, features interviews with leading professionals along with many examples of fine photojournalism. This latest edition has been revised to include international pictures and stories as well. This book contains everything from hard news to sports to features in its eighteen chapters.

Chapter 1, "Assignment," examines where most dramatic news stories come from. No, it's not from the city desk of some newspaper, but rather from the vigilant photographers who monitor the emergency scanners waiting for the next breaking situation. These photographers may just sit in their cars near a crossroads monitoring multiple scanners, hoping to be leaving the scene already by the time everyone else is just arriving. Also discussed in this chapter are other resources that can be used to track down news stories, including PR departments, websites, TV, and a good contact list.

Chapter 5, "Portraits," concerns the journalistic portrait. These are photographic essays that tell the story of a person. In this chapter, you see what it takes to put a person at ease so that his or her real personalities can emerge in front of the camera. Some of the tips offered include knowing when to talk and knowing when to listen, and even knowing when to bore the subject so that he or she stops posing and starts relaxing.

Chapter 7, "Photo Editing," takes the stance that when someone examines multiple images, he or she spends less than three-quarters of a second looking at an individual photo. The challenge becomes finding the right image out of hundreds – possibly thousands – of images that will communicate a story in a meaningful way. In this chapter you learn about theories of picture selection, research on reader preference, how to work with images, effects of cropping, working with space in an image, the size of image, and how to work with captions.

Chapter 11, "Photo Story," is about telling a story using pictures. This is the ultimate professional experience for many photojournalists. Some stories can take minutes to develop and others can take years. Here you learn how to communicate a story with pictures and words, including the different formats of photo stories, and the equipment that you will need to do things right. Also included in this chapter are a number of professional photo stories as examples.

Jeff Wignall compares extracting good exposures in your photography to befriending a wild-born kitten. While the kitten (and image) may be beautiful to look at, you just aren’t sure how best to catch it. You certainly won't get as many scratches on your arms from trying to capture a photo, but it can be equally as frustrating when thing don't turn out as you would like

The goal of Photo Workshop: Exposure is to show you how to approach capturing the shot you want; that singular vision of the world that you have, and share that vision with others. It comprises 299 pages divided into 11 chapters.

Chapter 1, "The Art of Exposure," explains how the results from a great exposure are far greater than the sum of its steps. A good capture results from the most basic of tools and techniques, and is the product of routine technical choices. Here you will see exactly what exposure is, and what you need to do to take charge of your exposures. Chapter 2, "Exposure Controls: A Primer," looks at what it takes to get a great exposure using any kind of camera. In this chapter you will look at the relationship between ISO, Aperture, and shutter speed, and how they affect exposure

Chapter 3, "Measure the Light," explains that irrespective of any equipment that you are using, the most important item in getting a great shot is knowing precisely how much light is in the scene. This chapter shows you how to measure the light. Here you see how light meters work, how spot metering works, how to work with handheld meters, and what situations can fool meters. You will also learn about the Zone System. Chapter 4, "Lens Apertures and Depth of Field," examines how the change in aperture also results in the change in the depth of field, and it also looks at the creative power of depth of field.

Chapter 5, "Shutter Speed and Subject Motion," describes that like the use of aperture to control the amount of light entering into the camera, you can also use the speed of the shutter to control the amount of light. Where the aperture controls the depth of field, you will learn how shutter speed controls the interpretation of motion. Chapter 6, "Training Wheels Off: Going Beyond Green Mode," takes you away from the automatic exposure modes, and looks at speciality modes like aperture-priority, shutter-priority, and full manual modes.

As with a lot of books, Take Your Best Shot is one that has been years in the making. While working with the nature photographer George Lepp, Tim Grey started a quarterly newsletter called "Digital Darkroom Quarterly." Over time he kept getting questions via email asking questions on digital photography, and many times these questions were the same or similar questions. So instead of just responding to these questions, in 2001, he started the Digital Darkroom Questions (DDQ) email newsletter. To this day, these questions still go strong. Tim Grey's latest book, Take Your Best Shot, was developed from these questions. The book is 252 pages in length and is divided into 10 chapters.

Chapter 1, "Digital Fundamentals," begins with question topics that will help give you a strong foundation in digital photography and help shorten your learning curve. The goal here is that even if you have the basics down, by reviewing some of these topics you will even pick up a point or two. Topics covered here include the debate between film and digital, dynamic range, ISO, resolution, RAW capture, and lens problems such as chromatic aberration.

Chapter 2, "Digital Cameras and Tools," examines the wild and wonderful world of ever expanding digital technology. In the days of film cameras, things did not change that frequently, but with the advent of digital, things don't stay the same for very long. Now you have many choices that constantly change. Here you will learn about the differences in camera choices, cleaning sensors, memory cards, lenses, and even about some specialty accessories like Lensbabies lenses.

Chapter 3, "Digital Capture," is really a new technology in the grand order of things, and so we are all still trying to define the rules. While there are a lot of similarities between this technology and film, there are also a lot of differences. This can lead to frustration. In this chapter the author attempts to remove those frustrations by examining some of these new rules. This includes comparing RAW to JPG, why to shoot RAW, setting color temperature, when to change ISO, what color space should you use on your DSLR, and how to interpret the histogram on your image.

Chapter 4, "Digital Darkroom," is a place that you will likely spend a lot of time if you are serious about digital photography. The digital darkroom needs equipment much like the traditional darkroom, but it is dry and performed in open spaces (and it does not have that chemical smell). To build a system, there are also a lot of questions to be answered such as Windows vs. Mac, storage and backup, do you need Photoshop? Do you need Lightroom? As well as many more topics examined. Here you will get a good feel for what you might need.

Chapter 5, "Color Management," examines why there are two kinds of photographers with regard to color management; those who are frustrated with it, and those who ignore it. Topics here try to look at how to manage color. Questions answered here are about profiling camera, calibrating monitors, color spaces, how to use print preview in Photoshop, as well as color management in Photoshop.

Chapter 6, "Optimizing in Photoshop," will help you overcome the learning curve that one generally finds when learning Photoshop. In this chapter the author examines many of the common questions that people have when working with Photoshop. These include working with RAW files, Curves and Levels, Cloning and Healing, Adjustment Layers, Selections, and working with Gradient Effects on an Adjusted area.

Last August, Adobe released the second incarnation of their photography workflow product Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 2 to rave reviews. As is to be expected, new editions of companion Lightroom books are also coming to market to provide educational assistance to learning Lightroom. Scott Kelby's Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 2 Book For Digital Photographers, along with being one of the best, is also one of the first out of the chutes.

Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 2, while it certainly addresses the new features of Lightroom 2, also guides you through the existing features that have not changed. This version is 456 pages in length (40 more pages of material) and contains 14 chapters (3 additional chapters)

Chapter 1, "Importing," devotes it's time to showing you how to get your photos into Lightroom. The improvement I see in this chapter is that not only are you shown how to get them in, there is more devotion to figuring out where to store your files, how to set up your folder organization, shooting tethered, as well as discussing topics like the use of the Adobe DNG file format advantage. Chapter 2, "Library," focuses on organizing your photographs. Here the author looks at using Collections, Quick Collections, adding Keywords, working with Metadata, and working with multiple catalogs. This chapter is more focused on the library and some of the content from the previous edition was reorganized and moved to the next chapter.

Chapter 3, "Customizing," looks at how to set up Lightroom 2 to fit your work style. Here you will work with setting up two monitors, adding a logo to your interface, choosing what the Filmstrip will display, and learning to work with panels in a faster and much easier method. Chapter 4, "Editing Essentials," gets into the basics of developing your photos. In this chapter you will see how to set the white balance, add more punch to the color of your images, adjust the tone, hue, and color of your photos, as well learning techniques such as vignetting, getting that gritty look, and using AutoSync to fix a bunch of photos live while editing just one.

Chapter 5, "Local Adjustments," moves beyond basics to editing specific parts of your image. This includes Dodging and Burning, working with the Adjustment Brush, retouching portraits, and learning how to fix skies. Chapter 6, "Problem Photos," will show you how to correct problems after you have taken the image. Here you will work with cropping, reducing noise, removing red-eye, fixing backlight photos, sharpening, and fixing chromatic aberrations.

Chapter 7, "Exporting Images," shows you how to save your images as JPEG's, how to email photos from Lightroom, using the export plug-ins to auto upload to sharing sites like Flicker, and how to export your original RAW photo. Chapter 8, "Jumping to Photoshop," examines how to move between Lightroom and Photoshop. This includes how to get there and back again, how to add Photoshop Automation to your workflow, stitching panoramas by using Photoshop, and working with High Dynamic Range images in Photoshop.

Chapter 9, "Gorgeous B&W," begins by showing how to determine if a photo would look good in Black and White. Then you will see how to do it yourself, how to tweak individual areas, how to add a split tone, and how to create a duo tone image. Chapter 10, "Slideshow," begins with a basic slide show and quickly moves to customizing your show, adding music, picking preferences, and finally how to email the show.

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Perception And Imaging: Photography – A Way of Seeing begins with a quote by Henri Cartier-Bresson, "Photography has not changed since is origin except in its technical aspects, which for me are not a major concern." This statement was credited to him in 1978. In the age of the digital image, is this statement still true? According to the author, even today, "Pictures, regardless of how they are created, and recreated, are intended to be looked at." This brings to the foreground, not the technology, but rather the process of seeing.

Perception And Imaging is about the process of visualizing, and how it relates to creating images.  In the preface, the author reminds us that the best of the best started out as amateurs. He shows in the book even the great Edward Weston was disappointed back in 1911 when he only won honorable mention with his entry of "Lets Play Hooky" in a photographic contest.

Chapter 1, "Selection" explores how the mind selects the images it sees. There are images we have all seen, in that, where if you look one way, you see a profile of a woman, another way it is the profile of an old mans head. This chapter begins to explain how to we see. Chapter 2, "Gestalt Grouping" examines the use of the gestalt method of how man organizes and groups visual elements so that they are perceived as wholes. That is, how you perceive items as a whole is completely different than how you see them as individual elements.

Chapter 3, "Memory and Association" discusses memory as part of perception problems associated with that. One needs to photograph what they see, not what they know. Chapter 4, "Space, Time, and Color," examine how through space, we find depth, size and texture, through time we find movement, fluctuation and flicker, and through color we find brightness, saturation, and hue. These all add to what we are seeing and how we visualize it.

Chapter 5, "Contours" explains that artists have been using the contrast edges between adjacent areas to bring out contours; or edges, for years. Where the sharp edges occur, a battle for control takes place. This chapter shows how to make use of this battle to control your own images. Chapter 6, "Illusion and Ambiguity" shows how, by using illusion, you can create your own reality, because a well done illusion appears to be real.

Chapter 7, "The Morphics" is about form, and the different forms objects can take. This can translate to your photograph. Here the relationship that is established between what is being photographed, and the photographer is important. It brings in projection; what the photographer brings to the object being photographed, introjection; attempting to listen to what the object has to reveal, and confluence; where the object and the photographer become as one.

Chapter 8, "Personality" reminds us that photographs, like photographers are unique. They exhibit the qualities that are brought to them by the person taking the picture. This requires us to see things from different points of view or else we may not relate to the photograph. Chapter 9, "Subliminals" examines those items which affect our perception that is below the consciousness. These are things that we are not aware of, but still affect our perception of an object and subsequently on the photograph.

Chapter 10, "Critiquing Photographs" shows how the context in which a photograph appears, determines how the image is perceived. Here you will learn how to properly critique a photograph, how this process is subjective, and will differ between different individuals. Chapter 11, "Rhetoric" examines how to use photography as a communication medium and how the power of visuals to persuade. Here you will learn how to use visuals and/or words to alter meanings of the images you create.

Perception And Imaging is one of those books that if it isn't already — it is in its third edition — will be a seminal classic text that is mandatory reading for anyone who is serious about photography and visual communications. The text is geared toward the beginning college student, but that only goes to show that it is a serious book for the serious student.

Learning to taking pictures; by using adjustments and controls, as well as all the manipulation that can go on in the dark room; both wet and digital, can be learned elsewhere, here you will learn how to see the image, create the image, and capture the image.