Review: 100 Ways to Take Better Photographs
Tuesday, April 22, 2008 @ 10:06
This is a book that would be valuable to the absolute beginner, but not of much use to the experienced photographer. It would appear that in his effort to keep the concepts simple for the beginner, author Michael Busselle, did not include enough breadth of subject matter for even the marginally experienced photographer.
Also, the author is well known for his landscape photos and portrait work, and as a result, he focuses way too heavily on these two genres. So, unless your interest is in one of these two areas, you're not going to get a whole lot out of this book even if you are a beginner.
The author doesn't seem to put much thought into making concepts easy to find in the index. This requires the reader to page through the chapters if looking for specific information, such as using a red filter. When I purchase a book, especially one where I expect to learn something, I want an easy way to look up related concepts. If I'm reading about using filters to create special effects, I may want to also get some quick information on light and how it can be used to enhance those effects. I should be able to go right to the index and locate the pages were the subject matter of interest will be located. That is not so easy in this book.
But, if you're a raw beginner looking for a "Dummies" type of photography guide, you could probably get some good information from this book. It is richly illustrated with lots of the author's work, and the informative captions to each photo provide excellent educational content on the various techniques the author discusses.
The author is certainly well-qualified to provide a primer on photography, and someone new to the field will definitely get what is promised, some really great tips for taking better photographs.
