An unprecedented and eye-opening examination of the early career of one of America’s most celebrated photographers One of the most influential photographers of his generation, Ansel Adams (1902–1984) is famous for his dramatic photographs of the American West. Although many of Adams’s images are now iconic, his early work has remained largely unknown. In this first monograph dedicated to the beginnings of Adams’s career, Rebecca A. Senf argues that these early photographs are crucial to understanding Adams’s artistic development and offer new insights into many aspects of the artist’s mature oeuvre. Drawing on copious archival research, Senf traces the first three decades of Adams’s photographic practice—beginning with an amateur album made during his childhood and culminating with his Guggenheim-supported National Parks photography of the 1940s. Highlighting the artist’s persistence in forging a career path and his remarkable ability to learn from experience as he sharpened his image-making skills, this beautifully illustrated volume also looks at the significance of the artist’s environmentalism, including his involvement with the Sierra Club.

The author of Create presents “an all-in-one, easily accessible handbook . . . [that] will show you how the pros do it. Study this and take your best shot” (Chase Jarvis, award-winning photographer). In Advancing Your Photography, Marc Silber provides the definitive handbook that will take you through the entire process of becoming an accomplished photographer. From teaching you the basics to exploring the stages of the full “cycle of photography,” Silber makes it easy for you to master the art form and create stunning pictures. From thousands of hours of interviews with professional photography masters, you will learn valuable insights and tips on beginner, amateur, landscape, wedding, lifestyle, sports, animal, portrait, still life, and iPhone photography. Advancing Your Photography features: · Top tips for making outstanding photographs from iconic photographers and many other leading professional photography masters of today · Numerous step-by-step examples · Guidance on training your eye to see composition with emotional impact · Tips on mastering the key points of operating your camera like a pro · Secrets to processing your images to professional standards Photography and the technology associated with it are constantly evolving, but the fundamentals remain the same. Advancing Your Photography will help to bring you the joy and satisfaction of a lifetime of pursuing the art of photography.

Learn to ask better, more helpful questions of your work so that you can create stronger and more powerful photographs.

Photographers often look at an image—one they’ve either already created or are in the process of making—and ask themselves a simple question: “Is this a good photograph?” It’s an understandable question, but it’s really not very helpful. How are you supposed to answer that? What does “good” even mean? Is it the same for everyone?

What if you were equipped to ask better, more constructive questions of your work so that you could think more intentionally and creatively, and in doing so, bring more specific action and vision to the act of creating photographs? What if asking stronger questions allowed you to establish a more effective approach to your image-making? In The Heart of the Photograph: 100 Questions for Making Stronger, More Expressive Photographs, photographer and author David duChemin helps you learn to ask better questions of your work in order to craft more successful photographs—photographs that express and connect, photographs that are strong and, above all, photographs that are truly yours.

From the big-picture questions—What do I want this image to accomplish?—to the more detail-oriented questions that help you get there—What is the light doing? Where do the lines lead? What can I do about it?—David walks you through his thought process so that you can establish your own. Along the way, he discusses the building blocks from which compelling photographs are made, such as gesture, balance, scale, contrast, perspective, story, memory, symbolism, and much more. The Heart of the Photograph is not a theoretical book. It is a practical and useful book that equips you to think more intentionally as a photographer and empowers you to ask more helpful questions of you and your work, so that you can produce images that are not only better than “good,” but as powerful and authentic as you hope them to be.

TABLE OF CONTENTS
Better Questions

PART ONE: A GOOD PHOTOGRAPH?
Is It Good?
The Audience's Good
The Photographer's Good

PART TWO: BETTER THAN GOOD
Better Subjects

PART THREE: BETTER EXPRESSION
Exploration and Expression
What Is the Light Doing?
What Does Colour Contribute?
What Role Do the Lines and Shapes Play?
What's Your Point of View?
What Is the Quality of the Moment?
Where Is the Story?
Where Is the Contrast?
What About Balance and Tension?
What Is the Energy?
How Can I Use Space and Scale?
Can I Go Deeper?
What About the Frame?
Do the Elements Repeat?
Harmony
Can I Exclude More?
Where Does the Eye Go?
How Does It Feel?
Where's the Mystery?
Remember When?
Can I Use Symbols?
Am I Being Too Literal?

PART FOUR: BETTER PHOTOGRAPHS
The Heart of the Photograph
Index

Creating mouth-watering food images requires more than just a love of food and access to a kitchen. With the popularity of food blogs and photography how-tos, it’s tempting to think that anyone can photograph food, but it’s another thing entirely to shoot for a tight ad layout with the pressure of your client watching over your shoulder. Commercial food photographer Teri Campbell has been called a “lighting master,” and in this beautifully illustrated book, he not only shares his detailed lighting set-ups and shooting techniques for a wide range of food and drink shots, but also offers candid advice on how to set up a studio, use the right equipment, market your work, find clients, bid on assignments, hire food and prop stylists, and communicate effectively with everyone on the set. Campbell shares his expertise on dozens of commercial assignments–from shooting beignets on location in New Orleans, to creating perfect ice tea pours, to photographing beans on real flames in his studio. Learn how he creates dynamic compositions, uses studio strobes, and arranges light diffusers, reflectors, fill cards, and mirrors, to create the perfect capture. Campbell also discusses his post-processing techniques in Adobe Camera Raw and Adobe Photoshop to create images that are irresistible. This guide for intermediate and advanced users provides the insider details to help you expand your photography skills or turn your passion for food and images into a professional career.

In Tavern League, photographer Carl Corey documents a unique and important segment of the Wisconsin community. Our bars are unique micro-communities, offering patrons a sense of belonging. Many of these bars are the only public gathering place in the rural communities they serve. These simple taverns offer the individual the valuable opportunity for face to face conversation and camaraderie, particularly as people become more physically isolated through the accelerated use of the internet’s social networking, mobile texting, gaming, and the rapid-fire of email. This collection of 60 pictures captures the Wisconsin tavern as it is today. Carl Corey’s view is both familiar and undeniably unique, his pictures resonant with anyone who has set foot in a Wisconsin tavern. As the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel’s Mary Louise Schumacher has written, “Carl Corey’s photographs . . . document iconic American places that are taken for granted. . . . They are comforting images, places we know, but also eerie and remote, presented with a sense of romance and nostalgia that suggests they are already past.”

The top-rated and top-selling photography ebook since 2012 and the first ever Gold Honoree of the Benjamin Franklin Digital Award, gives you five innovations no other book offers: Free video training. 9+ HOURS of video training integrated into the book’s content (requires Internet access). Travel around the world with Tony and Chelsea as they teach you hands-on. Appendix A lists the videos so you can use the book like an inexpensive video course.Classroom-style teacher and peer help. After buying the book, you get access to the private forums on this site, as well as the private Stunning Digital Photography Readers group on Facebook where you can ask the questions and post pictures for feedback from Tony, Chelsea, and other readers. It’s like being able to raise your hand in class and ask a question! Instructions are in the introduction.Lifetime updates. This book is regularly updated with new content (including additional videos) that existing owners receive for free. Updates are added based on reader feedback and questions, as well as changing photography trends and new camera equipment. This is the last photography book you’ll ever need.Hands-on practices. Complete the practices at the end of every chapter to get the real world experience you need.500+ high resolution, original pictures. Detailed example pictures taken by the author in fifteen countries demonstrate both good and bad technique. Many pictures include links to the full-size image so you can zoom in to see every pixel. Most photography books use stock photography, which means the author didn’t even take them. If an author can’t take his own pictures, how can he teach you? In this book, Tony Northrup (award-winning author of more than 30 how-to books and a professional portrait, wildlife, and landscape photographer) teaches the art and science of creating stunning pictures. First, beginner photographers will master: CompositionExposureShutter speedApertureDepth-of-field (blurring the background)ISONatural lightFlashTroubleshooting blurry, dark, and bad picturesPet photographyWildlife photography (mammals, birds, insects, fish, and more)Sunrises and sunsetsLandscapesCityscapesFlowersForests, waterfalls, and riversNight photographyFireworksRaw filesHDRMacro/close-up photography Advanced photographers can skip forward to learn the pro’s secrets for: Posing men and women. including corrective posing (checklists provided)Portraits (candid, casual, formal, and underwater)Remotely triggering flashesUsing bounce flash and flash modifiersUsing studio lighting on any budgetBuilding a temporary or permanent studio at homeShooting your first weddingHigh speed photographyLocation scouting/finding the best spots and timesPlanning shoots around the sun and moonStar trails (via long exposure and image stacking)Light paintingEliminating noiseFocus stacking for infinite depth-of-fieldUnderwater photographyGetting close to wildlifeUsing electronic shutter triggersPhotographing moving carsPhotographing architecture and real estate

Learn how to confidently build a thriving and profitable career as a professional wedding or portrait photographer!

For nearly a decade, renowned wedding and portrait photographer Roberto Valenzuela has been sharing his vast knowledge and unique, systematic approach to making photographs as he has taught workshops around the world and written five critically acclaimed and bestselling books that cover composition, posing, lighting, and wedding photography (his Picture Perfect and Wedding Storyteller series of books). He has helped countless photographers improve their craft.

But the truth is that you can create the most amazing photos…yet still have a failing business. And what’s the point of being a great photographer if you can’t build a career, pay your bills, and feed your family? In order to create a thriving business, you need a different kind of knowledge and a new set of tools to succeed. In The Successful Professional Photographer, for the first time Roberto turns his focus on the business and marketing of your photography so that you can build and sustain a highly profitable business as a wedding and portrait photographer. Roberto shares all his hard-earned knowledge regarding finding clients, marketing and presenting your work, and getting paid what you deserve. Topics include:

• Best practices and strategies for Instagram, YouTube, and Facebook

• Being found through SEO

• Promoting yourself and your work

• The role that testimonials and reviews play in your success

• Creating long-term client relationships

• Forming personal connections with clients with promo videos

• Why you should feature your work in publications

• Pricing your work and the gentle art of the up-sell

• Understanding and conveying the crucial importance of selling prints

While the photographs you create are the core of your work as a photographer—being exceptional at your craft is a must—that’s only half of the formula you need for building and sustaining success. The other half of the formula is here, in The Successful Professional Photographer. Implement the strategies and techniques outlined here, and you’ll have everything you need to succeed and build a long, prosperous, fulfilling career as a wedding or portrait photographer.

Foreword by Luke Edmonson