Coming from the perspective that true inspiration and great image making are at the core of any high-level photographic endeavour, Achieving Your Potential as a Digital Photographer presents an organized and cohesive plan for kickstarting creativity, and then taking the resulting work into the real world. The ideas presented have been formulated by Harold Davis over many years working as a creative artist and award-wining photographer, and in the celebrated workshops he has developed and led all around the world. These concepts are presented with accompanying exercises so that readers can put them into everyday practice as well as workbook pages bound into the book for note taking and journaling. This book will enrich your photographic practice whether the goal is simply to enrich your photography or to make money from your work.
Coming from the perspective that true inspiration and great image making are at the core of any high-level photographic endeavour, Achieving Your Potential as a Digital Photographer presents an organized and cohesive plan for kickstarting creativity, and then taking the resulting work into the real world. The ideas presented have been formulated by Harold Davis over many years working as a creative artist and award-wining photographer, and in the celebrated workshops he has developed and led all around the world. These concepts are presented with accompanying exercises so that readers can put them into everyday practice as well as workbook pages bound into the book for note taking and journaling. This book will enrich your photographic practice whether the goal is simply to enrich your photography or to make money from your work.
Coming from the perspective that true inspiration and great image making are at the core of any high-level photographic endeavour, Achieving Your Potential as a Digital Photographer presents an organized and cohesive plan for kickstarting creativity, and then taking the resulting work into the real world. The ideas presented have been formulated by Harold Davis over many years working as a creative artist and award-wining photographer, and in the celebrated workshops he has developed and led all around the world. These concepts are presented with accompanying exercises so that readers can put them into everyday practice as well as workbook pages bound into the book for note taking and journaling. This book will enrich your photographic practice whether the goal is simply to enrich your photography or to make money from your work.
Coming from the perspective that true inspiration and great image making are at the core of any high-level photographic endeavour, Achieving Your Potential as a Digital Photographer presents an organized and cohesive plan for kickstarting creativity, and then taking the resulting work into the real world. The ideas presented have been formulated by Harold Davis over many years working as a creative artist and award-wining photographer, and in the celebrated workshops he has developed and led all around the world. These concepts are presented with accompanying exercises so that readers can put them into everyday practice as well as workbook pages bound into the book for note taking and journaling. This book will enrich your photographic practice whether the goal is simply to enrich your photography or to make money from your work.
Learn to ask better, more helpful questions of your work so that you can create stronger and more powerful photographs.
Photographers often look at an image—one they’ve either already created or are in the process of making—and ask themselves a simple question: “Is this a good photograph?” It’s an understandable question, but it’s really not very helpful. How are you supposed to answer that? What does “good” even mean? Is it the same for everyone?
What if you were equipped to ask better, more constructive questions of your work so that you could think more intentionally and creatively, and in doing so, bring more specific action and vision to the act of creating photographs? What if asking stronger questions allowed you to establish a more effective approach to your image-making? In The Heart of the Photograph: 100 Questions for Making Stronger, More Expressive Photographs, photographer and author David duChemin helps you learn to ask better questions of your work in order to craft more successful photographs—photographs that express and connect, photographs that are strong and, above all, photographs that are truly yours.
From the big-picture questions—What do I want this image to accomplish?—to the more detail-oriented questions that help you get there—What is the light doing? Where do the lines lead? What can I do about it?—David walks you through his thought process so that you can establish your own. Along the way, he discusses the building blocks from which compelling photographs are made, such as gesture, balance, scale, contrast, perspective, story, memory, symbolism, and much more. The Heart of the Photograph is not a theoretical book. It is a practical and useful book that equips you to think more intentionally as a photographer and empowers you to ask more helpful questions of you and your work, so that you can produce images that are not only better than “good,” but as powerful and authentic as you hope them to be.
TABLE OF CONTENTS Better Questions
PART ONE: A GOOD PHOTOGRAPH? Is It Good? The Audience's Good The Photographer's Good
PART TWO: BETTER THAN GOOD Better Subjects
PART THREE: BETTER EXPRESSION Exploration and Expression What Is the Light Doing? What Does Colour Contribute? What Role Do the Lines and Shapes Play? What's Your Point of View? What Is the Quality of the Moment? Where Is the Story? Where Is the Contrast? What About Balance and Tension? What Is the Energy? How Can I Use Space and Scale? Can I Go Deeper? What About the Frame? Do the Elements Repeat? Harmony Can I Exclude More? Where Does the Eye Go? How Does It Feel? Where's the Mystery? Remember When? Can I Use Symbols? Am I Being Too Literal?
PART FOUR: BETTER PHOTOGRAPHS The Heart of the Photograph Index
Assembled from the wisdom of 36 legendary art teachers – all of them artists or critics at the top of their field – Akademie X: Lessons in Art + Life is an ideal curriculum for the aspiring artist. Each of the book’s "tutors" has provided a unique lesson that aims to provoke, inspire and stimulate the aspiring artist. These lessons cover some combination of the following: technical advice (e.g. don’t make a sculpture bigger than your studio door), assignments (some of which will take five minutes to complete, others five years), tips for avoiding creative ruts (including suggestions for mind‐expanding materials to read, watch or listen to), principles of careful looking (demonstrated with images of artworks, photographs, films or even billboard advertisements), advice on the daily practice of art (how to balance time alone in the studio with building an artistic community), career pointers (how to prepare for a studio visit from a curator or gallerist) and personal anecdotes (e.g. stories from the instructor’s own humble beginnings). Taken together, these lessons offer the reader a set of tools for thinking, seeing and living as an artist. Not only is Akademie X: Lessons in Art + Life the first illustrated text book of its kind for artists, but it will also appeal to anyone interested in contemporary art, providing first hand revelations into the philosophies and techniques of some of the world’s best artists and writers.
If you’ve got a love and passion for photography, and a feel for your camera gear and settings, yet your images still fall short–The Passionate Photographer will help you close that disappointing and frustrating gap between the images you thought you took and the images you actually got. This book will help you determine what you want to say with your photography, then translate those thoughts and feelings into strong images. It is both a source of inspiration and a practical guide, as photographer Steve Simon distills 30 years of photographic obsession into the ten crucial steps every photographer needs to take in order to become great at their passion. Simon’s practical tips and advice are immediately actionable–designed to accelerate your progress toward becoming the photographer you know you can be. Core concepts include: - The power of working on personal projects to fuel your passion and vision - Shooting a large and targeted volume of work, which leads to a technical competence that lets your creativity soar - Learning to focus your concentration as you shoot, and move outside your comfort zone, past your fears toward the next great image - Strategies for approaching strangers to create successful portraits - How to edit your own work and seek second opinions to identify strengths and weaknesses, offering opportunities for growth and improvement with a goal of sharing your work with the world - The critical need to follow, see, and capture the light around you Along the way, Simon offers inspiration with “Lessons Learned” culled from his own extensive experience and archive of photojournalism and personal projects, as well as images and stories from acclaimed photographers. If you’re ready to be inspired and challenge yourself to take your photography to the next level, The Passionate Photographer provides ideas and creative solutions to transform that passion into images that convey your unique personal vision.
Ansel Adams (1902-1984) produced some of the 20th century's most iconic photographic images and helped nurture the art of photography through his creative innovations and peerless technical mastery. The Print--the third volume in Adams' celebrated series of books on photographic techniques--has taught generations of photographers how to explore the artistic possibilities of printmaking. Examples of Adams' own work clarify the principles discussed. This classic handbook distills the knowledge gained through a lifetime in photography and remains as vital today as when it was first published. The Print takes you step-by-step--from designing and furnishing a darkroom to mounting and displaying your photographs, from making your first print to mastering advanced techniques, such as developer modifications, toning and bleaching, and burning and dodging. Filled with indispensable darkroom techniques and tips, this amply illustrated guide shows how printmaking--the culmination of photography's creative process--can be used expressively to enhance an image. "Adams is a clear-thinking writer whose concepts cannot but help the serious photographer." - New York Times "A master-class kind of guide from an undisputed master." - Publishers Weekly Over 1 million copies sold. Publisher's Note: This ebook of The Print works best as a digital companion to the print edition. The ebook was produced by electronically scanning and digitizing a print edition, and as a result, your reading device may display images with halftone or moiré patterns.
Celebrated photographer Sam Abell has been a mainstay in the landscape photography and photojournalism worlds for decades. Immensely well-known and popular among photography students and amateur photographers alike, Abell's signature landscape photography has graced the pages of such magazines as "National Geographic" and "Popular Photography." "Sam Abell: The Photographic Life" is an unprecedented look at the life and work of this artist's photographic process and reveals much about the relationship between art and life through the teachings that make him so sought after by photography students. This elegant book contains photography by Abell and such ephemera as postcards and invitations-most previously unpublished-that detail the inspiration for and influences on his photography. This a perfect gift book for lovers of photography. This book coincides with a major traveling retrospective that opens in fall 2002 at the Bayly Museum of Art, Charlottesville, the artist's hometown. The exhibit travels to the Toledo Museum of Art and the George Eastman House.
"Take your photography to new levels by avoiding common pitfalls. Making great photos (and making a living from them) can be challenging. In this book, Karen Dórame shows you how to smooth your path to success by avoiding over 100 common errors. From gear, to shooting, to marketing, Karen and her photographer friends share practical advice based on years of experience!,"--page [4] of cover.
