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Travel Photography Books
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Travel Photography: A Guide To Taking Better Pictures by Richard I?Anson (lonely planet) (8/10)
This is now the second edition of this book, revised to include digital photography. The book is divided into five sections:
1. First Things First – with chapters on both film and digital equipment
2. Taking Control – with chapters on exposure, composition and light
3. Being Prepared – with chapters on travel preparation and tips for the trip
4. On The Road – with chapters on people, landscapes, cities, special events, markets, sunrise & sunset, moving subjects, wildlife and shots from the air.
5. Back At Home – with chapters on assessing your photographs inc editing, storing, presenting and distributing them.The author doesn?t claim that this book is for professional photographers. It is pitched more at intermediate photographers who want to move on from holiday snaps to producing good travel photographs. However, even someone wishing to get photos published will find something in this book. For instance, the last chapter briefly mentions stock photography, indicating that the book goes beyond good amateur photography.
Many intermediate photographers will find the first section far too long. They?ve probably decided on their camera and lenses already and the 80+ pages on equipment contain little of interest for them. Beginners would find that section useful, but I can?t see this as a beginners? book. The good news is that the other four sections of the book are excellent. The main section is section four, which covers a huge range of travel themes and discusses and illustrates them very well. The photographs throughout the book are of a very high standard. I?Anson draws well on his vast experience as a travel photographer too and adds lots of useful travel tips throughout the book.
There aren?t many good travel photography books around and this one, while not perfect, is still highly recommended.
(There is a companion volume Travel Writing by Don George (lonely planet). If anyone wants a recommendation of it, send me a PM and I?ll happily email you a mini review. Briefly, it doesn?t give you much hope of ever becoming a fulltime travel writer ? the market is too crowded ? but it has excellent information for anyone just hoping to get an occasional article published.)
The AVA Guide to Travel Photography by Keith Wilson (9/10)
This book has four sections:
1. Getting There – with chapters on equipment and travel
2. On Arrival – with chapters on camera techniques inc exposure and composition
3. Exploring & Discovering – with chapters on a very wide range of travel photography themes
4. Coming Home – with short chapters on processing, editing and getting publishedThe AVA Guide to Travel Photography is also pitched at the intermediate amateur photographer, with some brief detail on how to get some images published. While there is a section on equipment at the start, it is kept to a minimum – around 25 pages. The photographs in the book are from a wide variety of photographers and are of the highest standard. Each photograph is accompanied by details on location, time of day, camera, lens, exposure settings and whether a tripod was used.
The best part of the book, in my opinion, is the inspirational third section. The travel themes which it covers are street candids, privacy, group shots, people in their environment, markets & festivals, landmarks, skyscrapers and towers, religious buildings, castles & palaces, interiors, coastlines & beaches, mountains, natural landmarks, snow scenes, lakes, rivers & waterfalls, sunrise & sunset, deserts, polar locations, high altitude, rainforest, planes, trains & rickshaws, moving subjects, sports & events, plants & gardens and on safari. The guidelines and advice for shooting each of these subjects is superb.
I found the book to have a good balance of the information I needed as an intermediate photographer wanting to take travel photography to a higher level. It comes highly recommended.
If you?re into travel photography, please join us in the discussions in the ?Travel? forum.
Ta for the recommendations Bertie old chap. I could do with reading up a bit and haven’t much of a clue where to start.
Thanks Rob. I have a fairly extensive library of photography books – probably far more than I make good use of. But there are a few gems in the collection I’d like to recommend via reviews here (and a few pretty useless books that I’d recommend people not to waste their money on!). If you ever need a general book on Photoshop, BTW, the best I have is Martin Evening’s “Adobe Photoshop CS2 for Photographers”. I reckon it to be the most indispensible book I have.
Bertie, could you give us a quick top 5 that are in your collection that you think are the best.
carl wrote:
Bertie, could you give us a quick top 5 that are in your collection that you think are the best.
Hi Carl
That?s an interesting question, and thanks for asking. I?ve opened a new thread to answer it, and maybe others will offer their top-five listings there too.
Cheers
Bertie
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