My recommendation is for those who are pursuing photography as a hobby or just want to get to the next level of photography; to go and get some or all of these books.
1.
Wiley Digital Field Guides: These guides have crucial information on the usage of your camera and how to go about using those esoteric functions. Detailed step by step instructions and photographs help you to get to each function easily and quickly. When you go out shooting; buy the one for your specific camera and/flash and drop them in your camera bag. While these books are extremely detailed…don’t forget to take along your manual too.
2.
The Digital Photography Book (Books 1-3) by Scott Kelby. These books will give you the nitty gritty on photographic technique. Scott’s humor may not be your cup of tea, but I find it’s just fine to my liking. He goes through step by step on how to get certain lighting conditions and teaches you exposure/shutterspeed/aperture and other interesting techniques. Some of the stuff he covers may not appeal to you, like studio photography but overall, this book series is great. I’ve currently got Book 2, and am now going to look for books 1 and 3.
3.
The quintessential encyclopedia of photography knowledge: John Hedgecoe’s The Photographer’s Handbook. Now quite out-of-date as far as the new digital medium is concerned, it does cover a lot regarding the essence of photography knowledge. And or those who are still shooting 35mm film, this is quite a knowledge trough. Even digital users can benefit from the information contained in this book as the techniques of photography transfer from 35mm to digital.
4.
The entire Photo Workshop series by Wiley Publishing. These photography books are great to get an idea of the different genres of photography there are. And each is crammed chock full of examples and explanations of how to achieve a certain technique. This well-done workbook series is done in lesson format with each crucial bit of knowledge receiving a chapter in the book: Each author is knowledgeable in their genre of photography. I’ve currently got Exposure as well as Portrait and Candid Photography and my goal is to collect the majority of the books. This Photo Workshop book is coupled with the online website: http://www.photoworkshop.com where you can upload your own pictures as you go through each of the lessons for critique by other photographers.
5.
The Photoshop Pro Photography Handbook by Chris Weston is a good post-processing book for digital photography. Have you ever taken a look at your photos and they’re just lacking that little oomph that will give it the “professional look”? Then here is a book detailing the techniques that business oriented photographers use to try to give the photo that “pro”-look. For those of you who have Photoshop CS2-4 these techniques are great. For those who have CS there are a few things that aren’t covered like HDR (high-dynamic range) photography which is tailored more towards the CS3-4 crowd. On the whole this is quite a good book and some of the techniques that you learn in this book, you can probably tailor to Photoshop Elements as well.
These are just a few books that I’ve purchased so far in my obsessive quest to learn as much about photography as I can. However as I add to my photography library, I will do what I can to come up with a follow-up to this blog-post.
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