What's your favorite book on...

[Bobby Sandstrom]

I'm looking for books that are tops in instructing the art of photo composition/design etc. If you know of a must have book of this type I'd greatly appreciate the title.

Thanks

Bob

[tim atherton]

Bob,

I think it depends in part on what kind of photography you are interested in - I don't just mean landscapes or cityscapes or portraits say, but also are you thinking more commercial type work? More "creative" or "artistic" type work (for want of a better description)?

Not that there isn't a lot of crossover in how people create a photogorpah that leaves a lasting impression, but there are so many different approaches, as well as types or areas of photography (for example, one book oncomposition may set out some rules or guidlines and say "never place the thing photogoraphed dead centre of the frame and never photogoraph it completley head on - it will look flat and unnatural" - but then another book will look at and praise the Becher's work, which does exactly that...)

Personally I find I get much more value from looking at books/monographs of particualr photogorpahers work (and critical essays about such work) than from "how to" books on composition/design.

Take my =current interest in urban and cityscape work as an example - I would much rather look at half a dozen books of work by Atget, Sudek, Shore, Basilico, Evans, Struth, Friedlander etc, and read the accompanying essays than read a book on "how to compose photographs of the urban environment". In general, I find I learn much more by looking at the best of such work (in this example, I think Szarkowski's "essays" in his book on Atget would probably teach more than ten "how two compose" books)

I'd also look at how say Vermeer and VanEyck and Turner and the impressionists and
Kiefer and Klee and Richter and other artists etc depict the landscape and the built environment.

Just one example

[jerry brodkey]

There are lots of great books out there. One that many people might miss
is Richard Zakia's Perception and Imaging. He takes a wider view than most photography books.............

[Ron Marshall]

Bob,

I can recommend two books that I have found very useful. They both cover composition, but to different degrees and from different angles. Both have lots of useful information.

Large Format Nature Photography by Jack Dyinka

The Art of Photography by Bruce Barnbaum

[Bruce Watson]

I second Jerald's recommendation. While Zakia's book is not solely about composition, it has seriously altered my own compositions. I'm told that my prints are now better with shapes and contrast. I see things in scenes that I hadn't noticed in the past. I highly recommend Perception and Imaging.

[ronald lamarsh]

I'll have to second the nomination of "The Art of Photography" by Bruce Barnbaum not only does he go into composition on a technical basis but also covers the inspiration/philosophy end also.

[Michael Hewson]

My favourite is "Wilderness Light" by Robert Rankin (It 's Australian though) - Rankin Publishers.
Michael Hewson

[Percy]

Hi.
I do not mean to change your mind about things but...have you considered taking a basic course in art composition, perhaps at a community college? Yes, it will likely be more expensive than buying a book, but I find that "how to" books tend to give a rather subjective view of composition (e.g., the rule of thirds, etc.). Although the same subjectivity often exsists in a studio classroom environment, I find that association with others, at varying levels of artistic development, contribute an understanding of the process that moves beyond simple classroom--or textbook--instruction.

My experience has indicated that most photographers are not artists; they are technicians,, and composition is simply a skill that must be learned, much as the correct way to hold a pencil when writing. People who use cameras as a medium of artistic expression are artists, and therefore typically concerned with realizing a particular vision on paper (or computer screen). The mind set and the considerations of elements such as negative space, balance, rythm, repitition, etc., are open to interpretation to a degree far beyond that which a technician might consider. Thus, if your wish is to work on your skills of expression, I think you are likely to learn far more from a course in art composition.

Artistic expression involves developing a singular language ( or, in some instances, languages (see Picasso)) of visual (or auditory, intellectual) for the purposes of, in this case, visual communication. The "rules" should be learned. But the great ones are those who, having learned the rules, break them, subverting them to their own respective ends. Examples: Miles Davis, Thelonious Monk (many said he played "incorrectly"), Picasso, Kerouac (spelling...?), as well as many others.

[paulr]

What Tim said.

[Mark Sawyer]

"There were men, women and children on the lower level of the steerage.…The scene fascinated me: A round straw hat; the funnel leaning left, the stairway leaning right; the white drawbridge, its railings made of chain; white suspenders crossed on the back of a man below; circular iron machinery; a mast that cut into the sky, completing a triangle. I stood spellbound for a while. I saw shapes related to one another—a picture of shapes, and underlying it, a new vision that held me…"

- Alfred Stieglitz, 25 or so years after making "The Steerage"

Art history students are still diagraming and analyzing this work, often considered the first "modern" art photograph, the same way art historians diagram out "the Last Supper" and other paintings.

Most chapters on composition in photography books reduce it to the rule of thirds, foreground-middle ground-background, leading lines, and texture. Easier to teach in weekend workshops and beginning photo classes.