Offers a guide to capturing everyday moments using an amateur camera, including tips on do's and don'ts, phtographic techniques, special effects, and candid photographs.

Photography has been the business and the passion of LIFE since the original weekly magazine's inception in 1936, and it continues to be the business and passion of LIFE Books and LIFE.com in the new millennium. But photography has surely changed during these many decades. The rigs and gear of old have given way-first slowly, then all at once-to sleek miracle machines that process pixels and have made the darkroom obsolete. The casual photog puts eye to lens, sets everything on auto and captures a photograph that is . . . perfectly fine. One of LIFE's master shooters-in fact, the final in the long line of distinguished LIFE staff photographers-was Joe McNally, and he has always believed that with a little preparation and care, with a dash of enthusiasm and daring added to the equation, anyone can make a better photo-anyone can turn a "keeper" into a treasure. This was true in days of yore, and it's true in the digital age. Your marvelous new camera, fresh from its box, can indeed perform splendid feats. Joe explains in this book how to take best advantage of what it was designed to do, and also when it is wise to outthink your camera or push your camera-to go for the gold, to create that indelible family memory that you will have blown up as large as the technology will allow, and that will hang on the wall forevermore. As the storied LIFE photographer and photo editor John Loengard points out in his eloquent foreword to this volume, there are cameras and there are cameras, and they've always been able to do tricks. And then there is photography. Other guides may give you the one, two, three of producing a reasonably well exposed shot, but Joe McNally and the editors of LIFE can give you that, and then can show you how to make a picture. In a detailed, friendly, conversational, anecdotal, sometimes rollicking way, that's what they do in these pages. Prepare to click.

For nearly seven decades, LIFE has been the leader in presenting the world's greatest photography, and now, with this exciting new volume, the tradition continues - but with a unique twist. Here, in concise and engaging vignettes, the editors of LIFE reveal the circumstances behind the pictures, explain what the photographers were looking for and discuss why certain images have become immortal.

Mostly candid and spontaneous, documentary photography serves to preserve a moment in time. In Lens on Life, celebrated documentary photographer and author of the best-selling The Art of iPhoneography: A Guide to Mobile Creativity, Stephanie Calabrese Roberts, inspires you to explore, shoot, and share documentary photographs, guiding you as you define your own style. Illustrated with the author's striking artwork and diverse insight and perspectives from seasoned photographers including Elliott Erwitt, Elizabeth Fleming, Sion Fullana, Ed Kashi, John Loengard, Beth Rooney, and Rick Smolan, this book will sharpen your artistic intuition and give you the confidence to take on personal or professional documentary assignments. Full of advice that will challenge you and strengthen your photography, Lens on Life shows you how to capture an authentic view of your world.

The topics in this edition are the basic ones a photographer must face before taking a picture. Once mastered, they provide him with a firmer grsp on the materials of his profession, his craft or his art.

For seven decades, Life has been thrilling the world with its unrivaled presentation of the very best photography to be found. Here, the editors have assembled the crme de la crme from the magazines vast collection of images.Because Life has always dealt with matters of every sort, the entire spectrum of society is represented in these pages. One after another, there are unforgettable photos from Hollywoods greatest stars, from the wonders of small-town America, from the terrible wars, as well as from the zestful years of childhood. Life has always represented the apex in photojournalism and its roster of great photographers is unequaled.