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Here are (yet more) books on taking photos and becoming a better photographer. This time we have three books, all by the same author, Harold Davis

Creative Composition
Published by Wiley
ISBN: 978-0-470-52714-6
240 pages
USA - $29.99 / Can $ $35.99

Creative Close-ups
Published by Wiley
ISBN: 978-0-470-52712-2
287 pages
USA - $29.99 / Can $ $35.99

Creative Night
Published by Wiley
ISBN: 978-0-470-52709-2
243 pages
USA - $29.99 / Can $ $35.99

So we have these digital cameras, some of which can cost an arm or a leg (or both), and yet we find that our photos just don't seem as good as the ones that professional photographers take. Besides the fact that the professional are (well) professionals, there's also the issue that they know what they are doing and they have trained themselves to see things they see a bit differently than other people do. In this set of three books, all by the photographer and author Harold Davis, the reader is presented with both a dazzling array of excellent photos and some excellent concepts and photographic lessons to expand your knowledge for taking better photos. Despite finding two of the books a tad frustrating to deal with, there's a lot to like in all three of these books.

Recently I did a collection of reviews on three other books that help you take better photographs. You can read those reviews here. The main issue is that ALL of these books (the previously reviewed books as well as these three) put forth is that taking photographs is not a hit-or-miss option: taking good photos can be a time consuming process that can take planning, strategy, proper equipment, and a certain amount of luck. Getting those great photos is going to take practice and a growing body of knowledge. The good thing is that some of the master photographers out there are willing to share their knowledge and experience with you. The bad thing is that they are not going to do a mind-meld so that you instantly know all this stuff--you are going to have to learn it the old fashioned way: read, observe, study, and practice.

In these three books, Harold Davis take three different (and certainly not inclusive) dynamics of photography: the general composition, close-up photography, and night photography to focus his writing (no pun intended). In Creative Composition, Davis explores the dynamics of what can/should go into a photo. How to set up lighting, focus, depth-of-focus, colors, balance, the whole shebang. Creative Close-ups deals with how to do Macro photography. Davis LOVES dew drops, flowers, and flowers with dew drops. Setting up your camera for these photos is not only grabbing your camera and a tripod and this book details what's necessary. Lastly with Creative Night, Davis provides insight on how to take night photography. Again, it's not just a tripod and an external shutter release, it's also about such things as creating fill when necessary and knowing when you do not want that fill.

Where all the books shine is the photographic examples. Harold leads by examples, many examples. In addition, each image is annotated with the focal length, f-stop, shutter speed, camera used, tripod or hand held, and any other special tools used. In other words, those who wish to do image autopsies can have a field day with these books. Harold is a wonderful photographer and better yet, his photographs are inspiring. He is creative and experimental and reading these books made me want to push my creative self and experiment with my photos. I know that not all of them will be successful and it's probable that the majority of my photos will fail, some utterly. But some of my photos may shine, and isn't that what art is all about?

If it was always easy to take spectacular photographs, great photos would not be unique and therefore not special. To strive for the unique and special is the goal. To strive is to grow. These books can help you grow.

If there was one overriding frustration is in two of these books there's information that should be there but isn't. Alternatively the information might be in the book but there's no indication that it's in another section and no links or even an indication for you to even think about searching. Fortunately, in the third of these three book, Creative Night, the issues of my frustration are not present.

As an example of my frustration, in Creative Composition, on page 104, Davis makes a special point about the photographer Arnold Newman's photo of the Nazi industrialist Alfred Krupp. Newman, a Jew was quoted in later interviews that "Krupp was a very evil man" and wanted to photograph him as such, despite the fact that he knew Krupp was no fool. And that's where Davis leaves you. A story with little information, no source, and a photo not shown. Then, when I got to the end of the book, on page 235 in the section on "Further Reading," was a reference to an interview that Newman gave that includes a detailed recounting of this photograph. Yet, even in this interview, there was no image. Here is that interview, and thanks to Google images, here's a link to the photo here (included with a different interview). For Davis to refer to something so special and not elaborate or provide the link to the photo, or mention that there is a link to an interview later in the book is a strange gap.

In other issues, Davis occasionally uses terms of art, which is expected in a book of this type and he does provide a glossary (which is almost essential in a book of this type). Unfortunately he doesn't always add all the terms of art he uses in his glossary. For example, while he does explain such words as Bokeh, Dynamic Range, and ISO, other words used in his text such as High Key and Chiaroscuro fail to make it in his Glossary. [For my readers, "high key" refers to images that are either overexposed or lacking in shadow detail. "Chiaroscuro" refers to the effect of light and dark (shade) and more specifically the contrasts between light and dark.]

So, let me do a bit more detail on these books:

Creative Composition

Davis breaks the book into four sections (listed below). Within each section are many sub-sections that are generally 2, 4, or the occasional 6 pages in length. The images contained in each of these sub-sections are directly related to the content so you can follow what's being said with Harold's specific examples.

• Cameras don't take photos, people do. Davis looks at equipment and general photographic physics such as the balance of exposure, shutter speed, and ISO.
• Unleash your imagination. Davis explores how photography and narration work hand in hand. Do your photos tell a story?
• Photography and paradox. Davis shows how what we see can be made ambiguous so that an object can become a non-object or rather "art." For example, a reflection off of the glass windows of a high rise building.
• Photography is design. Davis goes back to formal structural aspects of photography and design such as tones, golden ratios, patterns, etc.

Among the things I like in this book include how (photographic) rules are presented, and then when and why they may need to be broken. Davis understands that while black & white rules are easy for teaching, photography is filled with gray. For example, in the section on "Understanding Dynamic Range," Davis shows a variety of images where the harsh contrasts created by low dynamic range (aka, standard photography) may be desired. He then shows in subsequent sections on how expanding dynamic range can achieve what cannot be done with a standard image.

Besides the earlier mentioned information gaps, where Creative Composition fails for me is that Davis occasionally refers to some Photoshop technique but does not elaborate on how to do that technique. For example, in the just mentioned sub-section on Extending Dynamic Range, Davis refers to "Multi-RAW" processes that use "Hand HDR" techniques. I could follow what he's explaining from his description, but I'd sure like to see a process example. I'm very familiar with doing HDR in applications like Photoshop, Photomatix, and other HDR-processing software, but his Hand HDR approach is new to me and I'd like to have seen some specific examples showing the process. There's no doubt that Harold does beautiful work using his technique but you will only become aware of it in this book, you will not learn the details of how.

Creative Close-Ups

Photographing small things, very small things, or smaller sections of bigger things all add new challenges to photography. Besides the challenges of equipment, issues explored include what can be photographed and how to photograph that kind of item. Similar in structure to the Design book, the information is broken down in five sections. The first section is mostly to introduce us to the world of "close-up" while the other four provide dynamics of four different types of close-ups that Davis has focused in on (no pun intended).

• Worlds of wonder. Here Davis introduces to his world of Close-ups. Davis loves flowers and the closer he can get to them the happier he is. But it's not only flowers that inspire him, water drops, reflections, features, in fact, anything that has texture, refractions, or reflections that can be explored when closely examined is fodder for Davis.
• Getting Close. This is the hardware section of the book as it explains what additional lenses, tripods, and other equipment you might consider if you really want to get into exploring the small.
• Photographing flowers. There's more to this section than the name implies. For example, Davis introduces techniques to photograph flowers against black or white. Or taking multiple shots to create transparency and/or HDR images of flowers.
• Universe in a grain of sand. This is a strange title considering it's focused on water drops. Nonetheless, Davis explores the differences between raindrops, dew, hoses, irrigation, and sprayers. Each of these require their own analysis and approach for best capturing the details that each can provide.
• Close-ups in the Studio. Still life has been used for art since mankind first picked up the brush. Things have been no different with the camera. Still life is used both for art and for product images for big time advertising or items for sale on eBay. The big difference with photography in the studio versus in a field of flowers is you can now control the light as opposed to having to work with the light you've got. This does not mean you need to invest in expensive lights and presentation tables. Davis uses a few lights, TV tables, and some stock backgrounds to create his product photography.

At some point in this book Davis mentions that he loves flowers. That's obvious as you look at the many flower images strewn throughout this book. To Davis, they are not only pretty objects to photograph but also he enjoys flowers: he identifies the flower's names as easily as a teenager can identify video games by the sound of the theme music.

For a technique book, Davis fails to take photos of how he does things. Thus, he describes equipment, setups, conditions, tools without one photo (with one exception) showing what he's talking about. In the section called "Getting Close," Davis discusses a variety of lenses, numerous pieces of equipment, a variety of setups, and not a single image showing what he's talking about. While he does provide many excellent examples of the results of such equipment, how he got there is absent. I found the absence of such information very frustrating. The one exception is late in the book (page 198-199 to be exact) he has some photos of some hardware clamps that he uses for assembling "stages" for his still life. Ironically, the photo of these clamps are not the clamps being used, but rather the clamps as still life. I will leave it for people wiser than myself to determine if this photo then constitutes a photo of the equipment he uses or a (beautiful) photo of clamps.

On the other hand, Davis does typically provide an adequate explanation of what he's done with any of the equipment and/or setups. Nonetheless, a few photos of the equipment and the setup with a few words to enhance what I am looking at would have been very welcome, no essential.

The question then does come up: does Davis' explanations suffice and can one learn from this book on how to do close-up photography and product photography? The answer is possibly/probably. The full answer depends on how nimble your understanding of photography is and how willing you are to experiment. There's no doubt that working your way through the process to recreate the images Davis provides in this book will probably provide a greater depth of knowledge than if the whole recipe was simply handed to you. But at some point, one does need to be shown more than the basic ingredients and the approximate quantities would really help.

Creative Night

About a year ago it was dusk and I had just finished taking out the trash and was walking back to my house when I looked up and the moon was appearing unusually big behind my house. The house was clearly visible because it wasn't yet all that dark. I was facing East, the sun was behind my and the full moon in front of me. The timing for this event was perfect. I grabbed my tripod and camera and tried to capture the moment.

I lost my opportunity because the moon was much much brighter than the twilight-lit house. Having never taken a photo of the moon before, I didn't have a clue as to how much time might be appropriate for such a shot (a lot more than you'd think), but the house required a single long-exposure shot. I spent so long trying to figure out what settings to use, I lost the shot. I wish I had this book before that night.

My problem is not uncommon. The whole concept of photography is to capture light. At night, or even at dusk for that matter, there's not that much light at that time of the day so it's much more difficult to capture what there is. Creative Night is a field book, as it were, for how to capture the light you got. And, as Davis points out, once you've got night photography down, daylight photography is a piece of cake.

One of the big differences with this book, and why it is my favorite of the three, is that when Davis refers refers to something in another section of the book, it's where he says it is. When he refers to hardware, there's a photo of the hardware (well, at least one), and when he refers to techniques in Photoshop, he has screen shots of the technique in Photoshop. Especially when he gets to the last chapter, all of these make this book worth its weight in gold.

This book is divided into the following sections:

• Becoming a creature of the night. Here we are introduced to the potentials of night photography. Included are some of the physics of photography (aperture, shutter speed, bulb photography, etc.). Also included are some of the planning for night photography as well as safety precautions (fortunately no photographers were harmed in the making of this book). There are also discussions on battery life and focusing, and a lot of commentary on ISO and image noise. More on this in a moment.
• Colors of the night. This almost seems oxymoronic: at light extremes (almost black and almost white), there are very few colors. In bright light or dark shadows, color is not the most predominant issue, just the luminance. However, with proper photography, there can be a lot of colors in the night. Nonetheless, this section is mostly an overview of the kinds of places that can be photographed at night and the potential rewards of such images at these kinds of locations. There is also advice on the use of tripods, a mandatory piece of equipment when taking photos at night. In reference to my problems photographing the moon, this section provides all the details I needed that night (albeit too late for that opportunity). At least I'm ready for the next time. The section finishes by showing some images in black and white, rather novel in a chapter that discusses colors of the night.
• Lonely spaces of the night. I can't really tell you why this chapter exists as a separate chapter, but suffice to say that Davis does provide a checklist of things to think about when taking night photography such as when is sunset, moonrise/set, the milky way, weather, etc. The important thing is that there is no bad issues with any of these, only which issues do you want to deal with and how? And ever present, Davis also finds some flowers to take photos of at night.
• Watches of the deep night. This is the keeper chapter. Contained herein are the secret codes and ciphers for determining how long a given exposure might be, tricks on minimizing image noise, several techniques for dealing with noise, and most important, how to get great star trails. Actually, this information is in many other places in the book, but it seems to coalesce in this chapter.
• Stacking star trails. In the previous chapter, Davis points out some software that can be used to remove image noise. This chapter is devoted to a single technique of noise removal: the use of stacks and Statistical algorithms in Photoshop to remove noise from images. While he favors the "Maximum" mode for noise reduction (because it helps keep the star trails bright) he does say to try some of the other modes but doesn't indicate which ones might be considered and why. [For what it's worth, "Median" is often used to remove image noise.]

The odd thing about this book is that it doesn't have any of the problems and/or limitations of the other books. When he talks about equipment, he has a photo of some equipment (well, at least one, an interval timer). When he talks about techniques in Photoshop, he shows screenshots of what he's talking about and the approach used.

In short, all of these are good books. If looking at great photographs and seeing their EXIF data is enough for you, all of them will serve you well. What the first two books seemed to have lacked was someone doing a final proofread and suggesting to Davis, "Hey, why doesn't this have a sample? Why are there no photos of the Equipment, you could be saving thousands of words here? Why isn't there a reference in the book to this information found at the end of the book." You know, things like that. And it's a pity, because otherwise these are all stellar books.

___________ Gary Coyne has been a scientific glassblower for over 30 years. He's been using Macs since 1985 (his first was a fat Mac) and has been writing reviews of Mac software and hardware since 1995.