Even if you don’t aspire to “go pro,” imagine the benefits of knowing how to take better photographs. You would be less reliant on stock images for your blogs, presentations, and e-books. You could decorate your home (or homepage) with conversation-worthy images that let others see what catches your eye. And you could be a more visually expressive documentarian of your family’s life.
If you agree that reading books by photographers can be a great way to learn, here are three titles from Amphoto Books that you might want to check out.
- Bryan Petersen’s Understanding Composition Field Guide: How to See and Photograph Images with Impact by Bryan Peterson
- Extraordinary Everyday Photography: Awaken Your Vision to Create Stunning Images Wherever You Are by Brenda Tharp and Jed Manwaring
- Beyond Snapshots: How to Take That Fancy DSLR Camera Off “Auto” and Photography Your Life Like a Pro by Rachel Device and Peta Mazey
Each of these books can help you “see” more like a pro photographer. You’ll learn how to find great images everywhere you go, and capture shots that require minimal editing time. Each book is filled with gorgeous, full-color images and detailed explanations of what the photographer was thinking as they set up the shot.
Bryan Peterson’s Understanding Composition Field Guide
Bryan Peterson is a professional photographer, founder of the online Picture Perfect School of Photography (www.ppsop.com), and best-selling author. Sales of his nine previous books have surpassed 700,000 copies. His book “Understanding Exposure” is Amphoto’s Number 1 best-selling title of all time,
In this 287-page, field-guide-sized manual Peterson explains that the one thing that your camera can’t control is composition. He contends that it’s not the content that makes an image compelling, but how that content is arranged in the frame.
Bryan also explains and illustrates “Whether you are shooting garbage, Half-Dome in Yosemite, a fashion model, or a stricken family, a compelling image awaits you if you understand the ‘rules’ and nuances that every successful arrangement relies on,” says Bryan.
To “get it right in the camera,” he recommends taking a careful and methodical approach to seeing “layers” from the background to the foreground and making choices about lenses, point of view, time of day, the use of props, and the removal of distracting objects.
The book’s 14 chapters include:
- Learning to See: Mining the Mundane
- The Role of Aperture and Shutter Speed
- Filling the Frame: Two Steps from a Compelling Composition
- Choosing Your Background
- Using the Empty Canvas
- Adding Interest in the Foreground
- Creating Contrast
- The Golden Section, the Rule of Thirds, and the Rule of Visual Weight
- Horizontal versus Vertical
- Framing with a Frame
- Sweating the Small Stuff
- Mining Images to Find the Mother Lode
- Capturing the Decisive Moment
- When to Break the Rules
“In my mind, the measure of a photograph’s success is its ability to evoke an emotional response: to cause us to feel joy, discomfort, elation, disgust, sadness,” writes Peterson. “To that end, I encourage you to use all your skills and talents, including the courage to be creative.”
Bryan Peterson’s Understanding Composition Field Guide: How to See and Photograph Images with Impact
Extraordinary Everyday Photography
Brenda Tharp is an award-winning photographer, writer, and teacher specializing in travel, nature, and outdoor photography. For this inspiring book, she teams up with Jed Marwaring, a professional photographer whose images have appeared in Outdoor Photographer, Outside, and Sunset magazines.
Through numerous examples, they illustrate that that you don’t need to travel to exotic locales to capture interesting photographs. As they put it: “Wonderful images are hiding almost everywhere; you just need to know how to find them.”
“Extraordinary Everyday Photography” will help you search beyond the surface to find the unexpected wherever you are, be it a downtown street, a local park, or your own front lawn.
Showing images taken with DSLRs, compact digital cameras, and iPhones, the authors make the point that creating great image is less about the gear you use and more about your eye and creative vision. They explain how to use composition, available light, color, and point of view to create stunning photographs in any environment. The book’s 10 chapters include:
- Finding Fresh Vision
- The Moment of Perception
- Discovering Pictures Where You Live
- Expanding the Creative Process
- Capturing Everyday Moments
- Finding Your Point of View
- Creating Strong Compositions
- Exploring the Light Around You
- Photographing at Dusk and Dawn
- Photographing the Night Around You
“Photography isn’t just about figure the mechanics of setting aperture and shutter speed, and pressing the shutter release,” Twarp emphasizes. “It’s also about figuring out what you’re trying to express with your picture and when to press the shutter button. To do this, we must have a creative vision that comes from seeing with an open heart and mind.”
Extraordinary Everyday Photography: Awaken Your Vision to Create Stunning Images Wherever You Are
Beyond Snapshots
Using the friendly and welcoming writing style they developed as bloggers, self-taught professional photographers Rachel Devine and Peta Mazey show you how to use a DSLR to photograph the story of your life, from falling in love and raising a family to celebratory gatherings and everyday moments. You’ll learn:
- Common beginner mistakes and how to avoid them
- How to take portraits of your children, friends, groups, pets—even yourself
- How to capture light to make your photos more dramatic
- How to make colors pop, eyes sparkle, and skin tones more realistic
- How to capture the uniqueness and wonder of your family, friends, and world
Part 1 of the book explains how to go beyond the “auto” setting on your camera while Part 2 emphasizes that “Life is a Photo Op.” The chapters in Part 2 have titles such as:
- What Love Looks Like
- Milestones and Firsts
- Documenting Family Life
- Sharing Yourself
- Life Is in the Details
- Seeing the World (or Just Your Hometown)
- Seasons of Change
- All Together Now
In the book’s introduction, the authors note that “We’ve read numerous photography books that are technically overwhelming, or as dry and dull as the camera manuals themselves. We’ve tried to make sure this book is neither.”
“Photography is an art and a science, but it’s also a way of life,” they write. “Taking photographs nurtures your ability to see detail and appreciate beauty in both obvious and unlikely places.” They also point out that “Photography is storytelling, and everyone has a story worth telling.”
Beyond Snapshots: How to Take That Fancy DSLR Camera Off “Auto” and Photograph Your Life like a Pro