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Anonymous Tue 10 Jul 2018 17:59:28 No.3321920 View View Reply Original Report

Quoted By: >>3321930 >>3321947 >>3321950 >>3321954 >>3322045 >>3326421

Beginner here, are there any books on composition you recommend?

Anonymous

Anonymous Tue 10 Jul 2018 18:23:15 No.3321929 Report

Quoted By: >>3325405

'composition' is a buzzword
Just put things in the middle or slightly to the left or right, that's it

Anonymous

Anonymous Tue 10 Jul 2018 18:27:23 No.3321930 Report

Quoted By: >>3321969 >>3322036

>>3321920
My advice is don't waste your money on books. Unless you're a voracious reader, which most people aren't these days, you're never going to read any of it and it'll be another way for you to gearfag. You learn better by trying and failing. That takes you GOING OUTSIDE AND TAKING PHOTOS.

If you're going to buy anything, get some photo books of good photographers and study them, take notes on what you like about their photos. Then apply it to your work.

https://reflexamsterdam.com/books/
Here's some free photo books in PDF form, I recommend the ones by Daido Moriyama if you're into street photography. He breaks all the photography "rules".

Good luck.

Anonymous

Anonymous Tue 10 Jul 2018 19:22:33 No.3321947 Report

Quoted By: >>3321952 >>3321969

>>3321920
I'm kinda in your same situation, and I've been suggested to read either Freeman's The Photographer's Eye or Barnaum's Art of Photography, pdf of both can be found easily online. After searching on the web I settled for Barnaum's book. I've started reading it, but then dropped it; beside being terribly boring and realized that what I needed was a manual, not an essay with some vague pedagogic purpose: books tend to be terribly dispersive, even when they clearly try to stay on topic (like Barnaum), ideally for ignorant beginners like us a series of well-known pictures from famous photographers of the past followed by an extremely concise description on what makes good that particular picture, especially in regard to composition, would be a better solution.

Anonymous

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Anonymous Tue 10 Jul 2018 19:24:48 No.3321950 Report

Quoted By:

>>3321920
Wikipedia has a good article on them

Anonymous

Anonymous Tue 10 Jul 2018 19:30:26 No.3321952 Report

Quoted By: >>3322008

>>3321947
>Explain To Me Like I'm Five Why This Photo Is Good
The book

Never gonna happen. Just critically analyse the photo on your own terms and assess what YOU like about it. You don't need a cheat sheet for tips to rip off. All the work is right there in front of you.

Anonymous

Anonymous Tue 10 Jul 2018 19:35:25 No.3321954 Report

Quoted By:

>>3321920
The one you have with you

Anonymous

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Anonymous Tue 10 Jul 2018 20:41:02 No.3321969 Report

Quoted By: >>3321972 >>3322008

>>3321930
Daido breaking rules? The fuck is wrong with you? Oh, you don't read...
Grab them by the horns, guys. Good fundamentals are the strongest arsenal you can have.
>>3321947
Both are intermediate tier, a bit beyond starter knowledge, if you're having difficulty with them find something easier. Basic composition rules, easily language. If you're smart and good reader, you should still get plenty from them, even from Barnaum who is film centric.

Anonymous

Anonymous Tue 10 Jul 2018 21:04:14 No.3321972 Report

Quoted By:

>>3321969
I would beat the shit out of him for not straghtening the vertical lines

Anonymous

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Anonymous Tue 10 Jul 2018 23:10:58 No.3322005 Report

Quoted By: >>3322086

putting together a list, we get one of these every few weeks...

Thinking of skipping photobooks and 'photoshop' tutorials altogether, or at least only mentioning them, and focusing on textbooks. Everything put into tears. Ideas? Things to put on the list?

Anonymous

Anonymous Tue 10 Jul 2018 23:31:33 No.3322008 Report

Quoted By: >>3322025

>>3321952
What I'm looking for is more an ISO standard document for photography, but that's beside the point. To analyze critically something you still need a metric system for that particular subject, and sure you can build your own, but it's not really a smart thing to do. Fundamentals are called like that because you need to have them before being able to do anything, and to get up to speed with the rest of the world. What you fail to understand is that you don't absorb physics laws from the world around you through osmosis, and when you're an absolute beginner it's even harder to do something correctly if you don't have a clue, that's why textbooks exist: think about your argument if instead of photography we were talking about math; sure you can derive the entirety of math from observing that 1+1 makes 2 and few other things, but there's a reason why when you're 5 you're teached to count from 1 to 10 and they keep teaching you math stuff until you're at least 18 explaining it like you were the last of the retards.

>>3321969
>Both are intermediate tier
Then it was bad advice on the part of those who suggested them. I'm a good reader, but being an engineering student my comfort zone lies elsewhere, I'm not used to the art jargon and concepts.

Now before someone misunderstands, I'm not expecting photography to be like math or physics, but I do expect some very basic rules to exist and to be collected and explained in some way. I mean if Barnaum's book is intermediate level, then there must be something that is on a lower level than that: when a true beginner asks for advice that's what he needs.

Anonymous

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Anonymous Wed 11 Jul 2018 00:34:18 No.3322025 Report

Quoted By:

>>3322008
I'd never advise him on beginners. Looking at him again, I'd not even put him in intermediate tier. You really fucked it by not going with Freeman first, he's at least brief and somewhat understandable...

Look at those marked with T1. T0 can be total trash in instances. T2 and on is all on temporary rating, but definitely above the lower two.

Anonymous

Anonymous Wed 11 Jul 2018 01:17:45 No.3322036 Report

Quoted By:

>>3321930
>My advice is don't waste your money on books. Unless you're a voracious reader, which most people aren't these days, you're never going to read any of it and it'll be another way for you to gearfag. You learn better by trying and failing. That takes you GOING OUTSIDE AND TAKING PHOTOS.

THIS! There is enough material on the internet that is just as good as anything you can buy in a book.

If you want something motivational/inspirational or generally thought provoking then look for:

On Being a Photographer by David Hurn (Magnum) and Bill Jay

Art and Fear: Observations on the Perils (and Rewards) of Artmaking by David Bayles and Ted Orland

Page After Page: Memoirs of a war-torn photographer by Tim Page

Ways of Seeing and About Looking both by John Berger

Anonymous

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Anonymous Wed 11 Jul 2018 01:36:43 No.3322045 Report

Quoted By: >>3322088

>>3321920
>books on composition
Yes, but none are related to photography. If you want to into composition study/look at Art History texts.

Taking photographs as a pastime for ordinary people goes back at most a centuary.

The debate on what is and what is not is as old as time. Back in Neolithic times I'm sure Artists argued and sabotaged each others work to gain notoriety as they do today.

Trust your gut instict/aesthetic.

Anonymous

Anonymous Wed 11 Jul 2018 04:08:10 No.3322086 Report

Quoted By: >>3322346

>>3322005
the book photography as contemporary art is an excellent intro for recent trends and schools of author photography

Anonymous

Anonymous Wed 11 Jul 2018 04:09:17 No.3322088 Report

Quoted By:

>>3322045
old parr was master as fuck. he just doesnt give a fuck nowadays

Anonymous

Anonymous Wed 11 Jul 2018 23:05:24 No.3322346 Report

Quoted By:

>>3322086
Charlotte Cotton? Can't find it, but it can go into T4.
Working on that info now. Plan now is five tier infograph.
First tier mostly jokester basic trash.
Tier 2 - Basic well written work that usually start with full camera and lens introduction. Ideal for beginners. I've plenty of that.
Tier 3 - Above the basic. Slightly deeper look at photography, but still fairly easy to gasp.
Tier 4 - In depth discussion of techniques or somewhat philosophical work. Think 'The Negative' from Ansel Adams, and Barnaum. Would really need some help here. I've not much. Adrian Schulz on Architectural photo, a lot of Michael Freeman, and I'm thinking of putting Alain Briot in here, and any advanced class textbooks.
Tier 5 - More or less another jokester tier. Really in depth and specialized work. Ether extremely technical, or banal philosophical (Photography A Middle-brow Art).

Open to advices on anything, but mostly need help with last three.

Anonymous

Anonymous Wed 18 Jul 2018 20:39:31 No.3325371 Report

Quoted By:

Can you suggest a book about composition? Something with example of application of third party rule and golden section.

Anonymous

Anonymous Wed 18 Jul 2018 21:49:00 No.3325405 Report

Quoted By:

I've found the quickest way to learn compositions that work well for specific types of photography isn't to study or read or watch youtube videos or anything else- it's just to steal and use them from popular photos. I say popular rather than good because once you reach a certain level all the top guys become harder to identify traditional compositional rules whereas popular photos tend to heavily obey them

and don't forget art- it's been doing composition and light a lot better for a lot longer than photography and is very easy to trawl

>>3321929
I remember when I lurked and had never shot before

Anonymous

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Anonymous Sat 21 Jul 2018 03:21:41 No.3326421 Report

Quoted By:

>>3321920
It's pretty vanilla and probably the first thing that comes up when you google your question. You've probably seen every photo in it posted here this week but I still found it pretty helpful to check out.

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