Over the course of three years undertaking the Bachelor of Arts (Photography) degree at RMIT, I scowered every nook and cranny of the Swanston St Library (between the Dewey decimal numbers of 770 and 780), looking for photographic gold. The kind of stuff that would turn my flailing amber tinged candle wick of a knowledge base, into an accelerant fuelled bonfire that even Jonathan Storm would quip wasn’t half bad.
I came across the good, the bad and the questionable as to why it was ever published. As an ode to Spinal Tap detailed below, for your future reading pleasure (and hopefully take prime position in your photographic pool room) and without further ado is my top eleven:
Photography by Barbara London, John Upton and Jim Stone [link] (now in it’s 11th incarnation and fresh off the press for 2013) is THE introduction to photography tome that makes any other digital photography for dummies guide et al seem like a TMZ spot on Jason Russell. Like any good tome it covers pretty much everything you can think of in photography history, equipment, composition , colour theory, lighting, photographic genres in enough detail to get your feet wet, point you in the right direction to take your learning to the next level and never lead you astray. Peppered throughout with interviews from the best in the business and unlike most how to photography books where the author just ends up using their (often inferior images) to make a point, London, Upton and Stone opted to actually pay some usage fees to have amazing shots all throughout the book. One of my credos is learn from the best or teach yourself. This book is the celluloitic incarnation of that credo.
You pretty much have to be a particle physicist to fundamentally understand light. Light, Science and Magic: An introduction to photographic lighting (4th edition) by Fil Hunter, Steven Biver and Paul Fugua [link] will bring you as close to particle physicist, as you will ever need, to tackle any situation you are required to light. It isn’t your standard book on lighting, with lighting setup after lighting setup, after lighting setup that if you don’t set it up in the same ways described, you won’t get the same result and still left wondering why. The book answers that why, through helping you understand how light interacts with all the surfaces you will ever have to light metallic, glass, liquids, non-reflective surfaces as well as those tricky situations of black subject on black background and white subject on white background and to top it off a whole chapter dedicated to portraits! This is the only book you will ever need on lighting. Period.
Digital photography wouldn’t be complete without a stop in the old digital darkroom whether you like it or not. By the end of working your way through Photoshop CS6: Essential Skills by Mark Galer [link] and all the goodies packed onto the accompanying DVD you’ll never find yourself in the RSS feed of Photoshop Disasters………hopefully. Having said that checkout the RSS feed of Photoshop Disasters [link] there are some shockers. If Scott Kelby [link] didn’t have his own Photoshop-how-to book to pimp, he would fully endorse this solid undertaking in pixel pushing.
God Bless Dane Sanders’ [link] cotton socks for penning Fast Track Photographer with Richard Bolles[link] and Fast Track Photographer: Business Plan with David DeChemin [link] for three reasons; his Christian, as Yankee as they come and the knowledge contained within will help you form a solid base, from which to build your photographic/creative/videography/fusion business to come. The only down side is the tax, accounting and legal side of things differs a bit in Australia from the north American audience to whom it was aimed, so the ACMP better Business Bible is your go to for that stuff. The business plan walks you through step by step in the process and frankly I don’t mind a bit of spoon feeding from time to time.
Which brings me to the ACMP Better Business bible. Get it. Beg, borrow or download it from pirate bay, either way with it, you are armed with a condensed little book who’s contents will keep you on the right side of the law and operating well within the black. Armed with budgeting, accounting and tax advice as well as a whole litany of legal documents model releases, licensing/usage agreements et al, that you can use as is or bend to your own whim (pending further legal advice).
If you are a gear nut, tech head that is peeping at every pixel, then look no further than Basic Photographic Processes and Materials by Nanette Salvaggio [link] . Spanning both the analogue and the digital realms of photography in all their scientific glory does make for heavy ready, so fine art photography students need not apply, least you want to enter the dark side of photography.
If Photography (11th Edition) is part historical tome, then Photography: A Cultural History (3rd Edition) by Mary Warner Marien [link] is a bloody monolith. Hewn from the same stone but bigger and more encompassing in scale. This picks up the ends that were left by London , Upton
I don’t really get art. Let alone photographic art. The Photograph as Contemporary Art by Charlotte Cotton [link] helped me get my head around it and all the genres from deadpan (surely people in animals mask are going to die a horrible horrible death soon?) to places between places (all that low-to-no-contrast-urban-landscapes that more often than not are vacant car parks). Though as Darth Vader found the dark side is hard to let go of but in doing so he got to come back as a ghost (who’s original ghost was digitally replaced, after the technology became good enough to do so (or something like that I imagine)) which is kind of cool I guess.
If The Photograph as Contemporary Art helped me understand photographic art, $12 million Stuffed Shark: The Curious Economics of Contemporary Art by Don Thompson [link] helped me understand why Gursky’s Rhine II made a cool $4.3 million. If you didn’t already hate Damian Hirst [link], this book will probably give you five more reasons.
It wasn’t only a few years ago that Facebook pages for photographers were the domain of moms with a camera and shoot and burn fauxtographers, poo pooed upon by anyone who would dare to call themselves professional firm in the security of their Wordpress styled blog. Oh how times have changed. Social media is here to stay The Digital Handshake: Seven Proven Strategies to grow your business by Paul Chaney [link] will help ensure that nobody is stealing your cheese and grow your business. Detailing a brief history of networking, Search engine optimisation, then proposing seven strategies to grow your business including blogs, e-mail news letters, microblogs (twitter), Social networks (Facebook, Linkin,) online video (YouTube, Vimeo) podcasting and multimedia news releases. Always remember it's not the quanity of viewers it's the qaulity.
Short of having Sally Brownbill [link] working her magic on your hodge podge pile of images that somewhat resembles a folio, Designing a Digital Portfolio (2nd Edition) by Cynthia Baron [link] is probably the next best thing. It goes through the whole process of what people in the industry look for in folios to what is the best kind of folio to use based on the people you are trying to target, to how to select your images, ordering, flow, layout design and then how it is finally all packaged and presented. whilst there are no tutorials on Indesign or Photoshop this is more of the grandmaster approach big on concept, not so much the nitty gritty of which other books would be better served in doing so. Peppered throughout are example folios from some of the best in the graphic design /photographic/creative industy giving you a signpost of where you need to be to really standout and shine. I’m looking forward to the third edition that no doubt will be looking into the use of novelty thumb drives and tablets as the second edition was published pre iPad and frankley there are just not enough novelty thumb drives [link] .
So there it is. What do people think? What would you add to the list and why?
