photography books

bovril

can anyone recommend any books on photography, I have a john hedgecoe one. I have done the introduction to B&W at the gallery of photography. I would like to improve my technique, especially with regard to landscapes

thanks

davej

Try John Shaw's Landscape Photography. You can see some of his work here.

davej

FinoBlad

color or b+w?

bovril

I have been taking only B&W so far, as I am only beginning. I do hope to take colour in the future.

FinoBlad

Landscapes - Developing Style in Creative Photography is a good b+w book

Rotovision have several other good titles, if you surf their entire Photography section.

DadaKopf

God, those Hedgecoe books are awful. I don't know what to suggest. Anyway, don't get so wrapped up in the technical stuff yet - know enough but not tonnes. Work on composition and style and above all, content. Best way to do that is to study photos by photographers you really like.

Jeez, everyone's becoming a photographer these days. Strange.

FinoBlad

is it stuff like Michael Kenna you like?

bovril

While I do think the photos on Michael Kenna's website are beautiful, that is not the kind of thing I would be trying to achieve. At the moment I just want to take ordinary B&W landscape pictures better.

FinoBlad

have a look in the Gallery of Photography for the book I recommended so [Landscapes - Developing Style in Creative Photography], I bought it there a year ago, thay may have another copy.

DadaKopf

Those Kenna photos are like weekend watercolours! Bleugh!

I'd highly recommend an afternoon in the Gallery of Photography's bookshop. There's a new show on there now that's probably deadly because it's some American guy who went off and trained in Germany and now he's a German Objectivist now. I just can't get enough of the Bechers or Thomas Ruff.

Puca

Joe Cornish has an excellent book on landscape photography called First light or something like that. Also check out
Photoimagery.net some nice Irish landscape there

FinoBlad

DadaKopf, I didnt know that Thomas Ruff did landsapes, do you have any URLs for his landscape work.

DadaKopf

He doesn't do landscapes to my knowledge. Not natural ones anyway! I was just talkin' crap there. I just dig those German folks who explore the urban landscape. Almost like the exact opposite of Constable. (Sorry about the painting references, I don't know much about landscape photography at all.) I think Gursky may have done a little, though.

Some Dutch schools mix the German objectivist approach with landscapes, though. Unfortunately, I can't remember any names - one is of an unfinished road under a motorway fly-over in a green field if that rings any bells.