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Creative Composition: Digital Photography Tips & Techniques
Manufacturer: Wiley
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Product Description

Sometimes you get the best results by breaking the rules, but first you have to know what the rules are! In this indispensable photography guide, renowned photographer Harold Davis first walks you through the recommended guidelines for composing great shots with your DSLR camera-and then shows you how to break free, build your own unique style, and compose beautiful images with confidence.

  • Provides practical composition basics as well as the artistic tips and tricks eagerly sought by digital SLR camera lovers, who are growing in number as DSLR camera sales continue to grow
  • Explores the fundamental rules of composition-then how to break those rules to take captivating and unique images
  • Informs and inspires you with the author's own gorgeous examples of landscapes, portraits, close-ups, and other photos that illustrate his concepts
  • Helps you jump-start your creativity by showing you new ways to see

Go beyond the basics and create a photography style that's all your own with this must-have guide.

Amazon Exclusive: Photography Tips and Techniques from Harold Davis


How to Use Shadows to Enhance Your Composition
How to Use LAB Color for Black and White Effects
Professional Photography Techniques from Harold Davis

Amazon Exclusive: Interview with Award-Winning Photographer Harold Davis

We hear you’ve written some new digital photography titles. What’s the story behind these books?
Wiley Publishing is releasing three new books of mine, Creative Close-Ups: Digital Photography Tips & Techniques , Creative Night: Digital Photography Tips & Techniques , and Creative Composition: Digital Photography Tips & Techniques . My idea with these books was to help people become better photographers by presenting the subject of digital photography in a different way.

What’s different about your approach?
They say that cameras don’t take photos, people do. It’s really true. Someone with a great eye can take masterful photos with an inexpensive camera. Therefore, it is important to know something about photo technique, but the really amazing thing is that we can conceptualize and come up with these bits and bytes that make up a photo—and they can be meaningful to people. I try to help people come up with images that are relevant and meaningful. Cameras and hardware are just tools.

What’s with all the photos in these books?
Well, everyone likes to look at striking images, so one thing my photos do in these books is get people’s attention. However, the photos play another role as well. Each photo in my book is accompanied by the story of how the photo was made and the technical data related to the photo. That way, if you’re not ready to dive into the text itself, you can learn a lot just by browsing the photos.

My feeling is that you truly do learn about photography by looking at photos. It’s much more important to look at images you admire and try and figure out why you like them than it is to read about photography. The photos in these books are baked into the DNA of the teaching strategy. By browsing through the pages, someone can learn a great deal and have an enjoyable visual experience at the same time.

What’s the most important thing that readers can get out of your new books?
I want to inspire readers to be the most creative and best photographers they can be. If you pick up one of my books, I hope you can make use of the technical content and see how the photos relate to some of your own work. The most important thing, however, is to take the ideas in the book, get out there, and do some really peddle-to-the-metal creative photography.

  • ISBN13: 9780470527146
  • Condition: New
  • Notes: BUY WITH CONFIDENCE, Over one million books sold! 98% Positive feedback. Compare our books, prices and service to the competition. 100% Satisfaction Guaranteed
Creative Composition: Digital Photography Tips & Techniques Seeing Better - in the lens and in the mind
 
Review Date: November 14, 2009
Reviewer: Jeff R. Clow, Corinth, TX United States
I have read dozens of books that attempt to deal with the very difficult subject of photograph composition. Many of them rely too heavily on the author telling the reader how to "look" at things differently. What this book does throughout is very different - it actually helped me "see" things with a much clearer eye. For example, the chapter on "Seeing the Unexpected" prompted me to go out in search of macro and abstract details after reading the author's very good advice about asking yourself the simple question: "is there another way to approach this?"

Harold Davis is an accomplished photographer and his photos in the book are great examples of how creative composition can change a dull scene into an intriguing one. But what really makes this book stand out is that he talks about HOW one goes about making better photos, and his advice on creating a game plan and using pre-visualization is really good. I also found the chapters on how to create photographs that tell stories and how one should go about researching a photo to be particularly helpful and full of good advice.

An added bonus throughout this book is the details that the authors shares on each of his photos that are utilized to illustrate a chapter - you get an insider's look at the lens length, the f/stop, the ISO and the exposure that was part of crafting the image. Very helpful and quite interesting - especially on some of the shots where he used longer exposures.

The reason I read reviews on Amazon is because I like to see what other readers thought about a book before I ordered it, and I assume that you are reading this review for the very same reason. If you are someone who wants to expand your photographic ability and would like to learn how to do so through good fast paced instructions that are easy to follow and implement, then this is a great book for you. It is also one that will stimulate you to go out and try new things, and I believe you'll be a better shooter after reading this volume.

Highly recommended.
Creative Composition: Digital Photography Tips & Techniques I can see clearly now
 
Review Date: December 17, 2009
Reviewer: Barbara K. St John, San Francisco
I'm not a professional photographer, and don't have that natural "eye" for photos, so I am always looking for books to at least help me technicaly get better photos.
I really like this book because it is written in plain english and is very clear for those of us who aren't seasoned professionals.

The book opens with equipment and technique. All those years of point and shoot cameras do not prepare you for a manual one. To a novice, this is a very handy chapter.

The book primarily focuses on encouraging your creative eye. This could be disconcerting for someone who is looking for a really techical book although he does cover that in the last section. It covers technique, unleashing imagination, paradox (reality and unreality) and design.

For a beginner photographer I think this is a great book for opening up your mind to creativity, although I would also suggest another more "technical" book for more indepth info on that side of the camera. One reviewer wrote "Much of the time Davis helps the reader to learn to "find the magic in the mundane". I think that sums it up perfectly.


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