Worth having in your pack when you're photographing outdoors
Written: Nov 30 '03
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Product Rating:
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Pros: More than just techniques and tips - written with a story in mind
Cons: No digital coverage
The Bottom Line: Shhh...the Bottom Line is trying to get a picture of the deer in the field...
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| jps246's Full Review: Art Wolfe and Mark Garner - Photography Outdoors: ... |
Sometimes photography books are not that exciting, even when they are on a topic you want to learn more about. I think this is because many times (though not all), the books are set up more in a ‘technique’ way than in any type of story. For me, if I want a text book, I’ll pick one up, but when I’m trying to learn more about a topic, I want to be able to read the entire book and not feel like I am hopping from technique to technique.
Photography Outdoors does an admirable job in telling the story of improving your outdoor photography technique. Coming in at a short 126 pages, Mark Gardner and Art Wolf have written an enjoyable guide to the techniques and ideas behind outdoor photography. Told in five chapters, Gardner and Wolf provide an extensive overview of the various fields of outdoor photography, including composition, natural light, exposure, working with your camera gear, and outdoor adventure.
Each chapter clearly goes over the intended technique or idea and engages the reader to continue on through the rest of the book.
Starting with composition, which arguable is probably the most important part of photography (whether or not it’s outdoors) and finishing in adventure photography techniques to make your pictures really stand out, Photography Outdoors, goes through everything you need to know in order to start taking better photographs outdoors.
For me, the most helpful chapter was the chapter on exposure (Chapter 3) and the final chapter on adventure photography (Chapter 5). When you are photographing outdoors, exposure can be one of the hardest things to master (when shooting with an SLR camera and not a point and shoot camera) because the light in the outdoors is always changing. Gardner and Wolf provide some basic tips that have helped me better expose my photographs and get exactly what I’m looking for when I’m taking film pictures. In the final chapter, Gardner and Wolf give some great tips on how to make your outdoor photographs stand out, from the addition to people in scenes to working in snowscapes. The tips are all very helpful and easily followed.
Photography Outdoors does not, however address digital photography (the book was published in 1995 before the advent of amateur digital photography). This is not a major flaw in the book and even if one is only shooting in digital nowadays, the book is still worth reading. Most of the tips and techniques are applicable to both film and digital. The only difference I find is in regards to exposure – when I take a picture with digital, I can immediately see how it came out and can adjust the exposure there and then and then when I get home, if I still don’t like the exposure, I can fiddle around with it in Photoshop. When you’re shooting with film, there is a lot less room (though some, especially if you do your own darkroom work) for errors.
Should there be words in the book you don’t understand, a glossary is provided. There is also a bibliography so that you can further research outdoor photography should you want to.
One of the most readable photography books out there, Photography Outdoors, full of tips and techniques, is an excellent addition to any photographer’s bookshelf.
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Photography Reviews:
Books and Magazines:
Shutterbug Magazine / Popular Photography Magazine / PC Photo / Outdoor Photography
Cameras:
Olympus C-4000 Digital Camera / Olympus D-460 Zoom Digital Camera / Minolta Maxxum 300si (35mm SLR) / Polaroid PDC 640 Digital Camera
Printers, Scanners & Memory
SanDisk 128MB SmartMedia Card / Memorex 128MB SmartMedia Card / HP Photosmart 1115 / Microtek Scanmaker 4800
Recommended:
Yes
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