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Is anyone aware of any decent books which can act as an actual
photography course? I'm not talking about the basics of understanding
aperatures and shutter speeds, depth of field, and elementary things
like that. Nor do I mean what might be considered a normal book on the
subject. I already have books like Adams' The Camera, The Negative, The
Print, and some others by Hedgecoe. What I'm looking for is a book that
takes one through learning photography by presenting a topic, then
making an photo assignment, as it were, to put the lesson into practical
use. Then once the desired result is achieved, proceed on to a more
advanced topic and assignment. Sort of the way one might expect a course
at the local community college to operate, though obviously without
instructor critism. Am I being clear on what I'm seeking? Is anyone
aware of a decent book like this? I'm not exatly new to cameras and have owned a variety of SLR's over 20
years. I have almost always shot exclusively in Aperature Priority mode,
swithing to manual if I feel a need to adjust for some situation. But I
am aware that most of my photos are really just barely better than
snapshots, and I'd like to do better. The obvious answer is to take the
course at the community college, but I'm insecure enough that I'd like
to get a bit better before I _expose_ myself to real critism.
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No single book, no.
I started out three years ago, a knowlessman with no published work to
my name; I had be (quite rightly, yet quite rudely) informed by my graphics
lecturer that graphics was not for me. I had already shown vague interest in
the photographic arts- in my early teens I took a lot of photographs of the
sky on my mother's Vivitar BV35 focus-free compact- and so decided to give
it a more serious whirl. Unfortunately, all the informative lectures in
photography had been the ones i'd skipped, so I set about teaching myself
photography- with some help from the experienced, of course.
My sources have been-
Hedgecoe's "35mm Handbook"- picked up from a library sale for about 50p.
Roger Hicks & Frances Schultz's "The Lens Book", "The Film Book",
"Medium Format Handbook" (OT ici) and "Perfect Exposure"- borrowed from a
library more times than I care to recall.
Reader's Digest book on photography- some help. Very cheap.
Amateur Photographer magazine (UK)- lots of help, at least with
equipment.
Asking dumb questions on the internet- .... okay, I suppose i've learned more
unneccessary crap that I would otherwise have learned, and often i've felt
like giving up and taking up Lomography, but it's been almost worth it
Oh, and getting a job in a camera shop has helped too. All of this has amounted to.. well, nothing. I'm still unpublished, i've
sold nothing, and i'm still at the same sodding university! Only now i'm two
thirds of the way through a course which has taught me nothing, and taught
my peers less that I learned in half the time. Oh, and the course is run by
failed "artists" who know bugger all about anything but fashion-type work,
and pretty much teach us that technique is less important that ideas. Hence
all the post-grads (some of whom pay £4000+ PER YEAR to be there) are well
versed in Guy Bourdin and Rankin and cross-processing and painting with
light when they start their first job shooting people's babies sat in a
damn' fruitbowl in the middle of a Dudley shopping centre... Anyway, to the point; courses = not worth the $$$. Books and experience
the way to go.
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