randomosity

This is a superbly fash­ioned instruc­tion course for those who want to go bey­ond pho­to­graphic snaps and start to think about what makes a photo par­tic­u­larly remark­able. Although it won’t provide a simple for­mula to turn you into a pho­to­graphic expert, what it does do is provide a series of ‘assign­ments’ focus­sing of par­tic­u­lar aspects that can be explored to both enjoy get­ting deeper into the pho­to­graphic exper­i­ence, but also mov­ing bey­ond the snap­shot. Ten Photo Assign­ments looks to aspects such as light­ing, macro-photography, expos­ure and the vari­ous ways that the com­pon­ents of a good digital cam­era work together to cre­ate the image.

The author takes you through a recipe-based approach, lay­ing out the spe­cific com­pon­ents that you will work with in each of the ten chapters, then com­bines these with a straight­for­ward object­ive. The sub-exercises in each assign­ment lead you through con­struct­ive hands-on examples that build towards the object­ive. This is a par­ticu­alry use­ful approach as it allows for a nice self-paced approach. The chapters are aug­men­ted with com­ments that look at the indi­vidual steps and explore what you should be find­ing through doing.

You have to com­mit to this book and it also requires a fair bit of pho­to­graphic equip­ment to engage with it prop­erly. How­ever, the res­ults are quite pro­found and this is a super mini-course in mov­ing your pho­to­graphy from purely ama­teur, point and snap to begin­ning to con­sider more soph­ist­ic­ated com­pos­i­tion and a more pro­fes­sional approach to your cre­at­ive art.

This is not a manual inten­ded for the cas­ual user and as such I would aim it towards someone who is engaged in the pho­to­graphic art and famil­iar with the vari­ous aspects of manual man­age­ment of your cam­era.  I would highly  recom­mend this book to just such a person.