Working The Light: Landscape Photography Masterclass
£11.38
The start of a great series - This is a great book for those who may feel unable to afford to attend a workshop or do not have the opportunity. One of it s great strengths is it features work by the masters giving the class and also work by participants. So long as you know the basic workings of photography you will learn something here that other books don t offer
A good class, but not really a master class - The concept of this book is very clever - Three wonderful British landscape photographers critiquing their own and each other s work, as well as critiquing images by participants in their landscape photography workshops. The critiques are useful in showing how others respond to and interpret landscape images.But, really, to be a master class, half of the book is missing.I bought this book assuming that it would have a number of master images with details of how they were made and the critiques of why they have worked. But there are only a very small number of images that invoke the emotional response that I want when looking at landscape images. (E.g. Sluga Pass, Italy by Charlie Waite, p.65 is very powerful and Budle Bay by David Ward, p.112, is delicious.) The remaining images are all good, but few of them make me say Wow when I look at them. I know that there are plenty of books that do critique great images, but I was expecting that this would be one of them, as well as have other content.So, the photographers critiques of those images are good - looking at some elements that might have helped bring in that wow factor. But I think there should have been more detailed constructive feedback (they guys are a little too nice sometimes), and more amazing images with perhaps essays on what are the elements that make stunning landscape photos stunning.The other part that s missing is a section (or sections) on landscape images that aren t the straight, full-colour, nature in all its glory photographs. I really like those kinds of shots - that s one of the reasons I bought this book. But what about more interpretive images?I thought that there could have been value in exploring other styles, like Sally Mann s Deep South work, or Art Wolfe s style as exemplified in Edge of the Earth Corner of the Sky, or more black & white work like Marty Knapp or Michael Kenna. The style represented in Working the Light is very nice, but if the book is a Master Class, then it should have explored other styles and how they were achieved and how people respond to them too.Perhaps one way to achieve that would have been for Joe, Charlie and David to critique works that have really inspired them - pull out those shots by Peter Dombrovskis, Ansel Adams, whoever - and tell us why you think they work so much better than other images. What makes them special to you?So, this is a good book, but a little to generic for me to think that it s really a Master Class. Perhaps subsequent books in the series will help me out!
An excellent examples book - This is a excellent book full of modern examples, with a couple of pages of critique. It is not so much of a Masterclass as claimed in the title, you learn through looking at other people s photographs as opposed to more technical works (Ansel Adams book 1 etc.)A very good book, a must have for the keen landscape photographer