Customer Reviews: Read 18 more reviews...
 A great book! May 11, 2008
1 out of 2 found this review helpful
All the other glowing reviews are justified.
It really is a very good book, deceptive in its simplicity, in which one is given direction (and lots more) from a master-teacher who really wants the reader to learn and improve.
Enough said - buy this book!
 Learning to see August 28, 2007
3 out of 3 found this review helpful
This is an easy read and contains some practical advice, but it is not going to turn you into a Bailey or Lichfield overnight. I felt that what it did do well was to encourage you to play, snap away, and then select the best picture. With digital cameras that is an easy and inexpensive thing to do that. Film and printing no so much.
My one irritation with the book was Peterson's suggestion that it is within everyone's grasp to get photographs into a stock agency and sold for $10,000 a time.
Just what I needed July 6, 2007
15 out of 15 found this review helpful
If the measure of a good book is compelling readability, then this book is a good book. Two sessions is all it took, although of course it does have pictures.
And if the measure of a good photography book is inspiring you to go out and take pictures, then this is a good photography book. Even before finishing it I was trying out some of Peterson's tips.
What I like so much about this book is that it has enough "technical" information to be really useful, but not so much as to make it dry. The author clearly loves his work (and his wife) and communicates it with bubbling enthusiasm. He's "artistic" but doesn't come across as a moody, tortured soul.
I have some technical photography books that are highly informative but also dour and depressing. By contrast this book had me buzzing and raring to go. Highly recommended!
A very good book to begin with May 11, 2007
17 out of 17 found this review helpful
Firstly this is not a book telling you how to take better photographs. That's the nuts and bolts you either are told by someone or, better still, learn by simply picking up a camera and playing.
This book is about how to see the picture...and how to see the same picture from a different view. For instance I like to shoot flowers sometimes, close up, but following an idea in this book, instead of standing over, or by the flower, I lay down and shot upwards and forwards, (I also decided to have the sun backlight the petals), the result was a far more interesting picture, and a picture that caught people as they looked,...'oh that's stunning' some kind person said.
That's the idea behind this book, to take what you know, and then say, but try it from this view. Like landscapes, always with a wide angle, but then use your telephoto to shoot detail. Or try a landscape laying down, so a mass of colourful flowers with a skyscape overhead.
I've been taking pictures for 25 years now, but this book did give me a lot of thought and many ideas that maybe some I once knew but had forgotten, and others I hadn't even thought of. So yes, this book is excellent.
A Great Book March 9, 2007
24 out of 24 found this review helpful
A book written for people who already know how to use their camera it concentrates on composition and techniques for getting more interesting images lined up in your viewfinder. I bought this book after reading the same authors book Exposure, if you want to know what all the different shooting options on your camera do then buy Exposure instead. This is a book about how to take a photograph with a camera be it film or digital it is not a digital imaging book.
Learning to See Creatively has made me consider more how I point my camera. It has helped me to take more visually interesting photographs and to think about what I want my photo to look like before I press the shutter release.
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