13 best photography books

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Photo Basics

This entertaining book from beloved National Geographic photographer and Photo Ark founder Joel Sartore shows aspiring photographers how to take great pictures, from framing and F-stops to editing and archiving. Whether you're using your phone or a DSLR camera, you'll learn the fundamentals of photography--and how to put them to work every day. In a series of short lessons, Sartore explains the basics, from choosing a camera and gear to understanding focus, exposure, composition, and lighting.

What you need to get started

For most people, everything you need to make great photographs can fit into a backpack. You’ll always want to have the following: a camera you’re familiar with, a lens or two, extra memory cards, batteries or a battery charger, and a lens cloth—but a clean T-shirt will do in a pinch! Depending on your goals for the shoot and your camera, you may also want an external flash. In all of this, it’s important for you to invest in the equipment that’s right for you. Consider your goals, the amount of time you have to devote to photography, and what your budget will allow. Ultimately, you’ve got to put together a kit that will go with your style—of work, of shooting, of storytelling. If you can tell the story with less, don’t drag around extra gear just because a book tells you you should. As in life, you’ll be most successful in photography if you’re true to yourself.

Types of Cameras

Most smartphones have high-quality cameras built right in. These cameras are getting more advanced with every new model of phone, with better image quality and more photographer control. If it’s always in your pocket, you won’t miss a shot as long as your battery is charged.

Types of Cameras

These small and lightweight cameras are usually about the size of a deck of cards. The lens and flash are built in, leaving you with fewer customization options. But they tend to have larger sensors and more storage capacity than phone cameras, making them a great option if you don’t want to carry anything big or heavy.

Types of Cameras

A mirrorless camera is a digital camera without an internal mirror system. Many of these models have interchangeable lenses, but with a lighter and thinner camera body. Instead of the optical viewfinder, you’ll have an electronic viewfinder to preview your image, where the camera projects what it sees onto an LCD screen on the back of the camera body. With fantastic image quality and nearly silent shooting, mirrorless cameras are on the rise with professional photographers, but at a higher price point, they remain a little beyond what most hobbyists will want to spend.

Types of Cameras

A digital single-lens reflex camera, or DSLR, allows you total control over settings and lenses. You can often buy a starter kit that includes a camera body and a zoom lens that will work in a variety of situations, and gradually add more lenses to your kit over time. If you want to create fine-art photographs in your garden, or dramatic long-lens shots of grizzly bears in golden light, you’re going to want the options and flexibility a DSLR provides.

Built-In Flash

Most compact and DSLR cameras come with a built-in flash unit. These are small and relatively low-powered. In our opinion, this little flash will only cause you trouble, adding dreaded red-eye to your photographs, and making them look more like snapshots. We say, leave it off.

Umbrella

By bouncing the flash into an umbrella, you enlarge the size of your light source and produce much softer light on your subjects. This is ideal for portraits. You can get a similar effect by bouncing your flash off a reflector, white poster board, or even a white wall or ceiling. You can also use a translucent umbrella and have the light pass through it (rather than bounce off it). Both bouncing and diffusing work to soften the light in slightly different ways.

Reflector

A reflector is an object used to reflect light onto a subject. Although you can buy a tool for this purpose, you can also use what’s available to you, like a wall or even a T-shirt. Keep in mind that the color of the object will impact the reflected light. White reflectors bounce neutral light, while silver yields a cool tone and gold gives a warm tone.

Lens Filters

In general, it’s good practice to have a filter on your lens to protect it from dust and scratches. Filters can also impact the image. A polarizing filter will darken skies and reduce glare off of reflective surfaces like water. Filters may also impact your exposure, so choose wisely.These days, most filter effects can be applied relatively easily in your digital darkroom after the fact, so don’t sweat it if a filter isn’t in your budget. More on postproduction of your photos later.

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Introduction

Today’s world is awash with images, but what makes people stop scrolling or walking by? What makes them remember an image or a photographer’s work? In my mind, it’s the stories they tell. Stories are the real ‘influencers’. The aim of this book is to help you create lasting photographs, the sort Dorothea Lange called ‘second lookers’. using a tried-and-tested approach that puts the story at the heart of everything you do.

We’ll start with the basics, including what equipment you need and the essence of a great photograph. Then we’ll examine the craft of storytelling and how this can be applied to photography. From there, the book follows the process of making a photo story. In each section you will find step-by-step exercises illustrating fundamental techniques and projects to challenge your creativity and broaden your skill set. You’ll also find tips, creative briefs and plenty of real-world examples.

Storytelling 101

Great leaders tell great stories. They know how to spin a good yarn and it’s these tales that capture and direct our attention. Thanks to social media platforms like Instagram, anyone can share their stories quickly, allowing others to live vicariously through their experiences. In this chapter, I’m going to break down the process behind telling stories and look at how we can apply these techniques to photography. By the end, you’ll have learned an easy-to-follow method for creating compelling photo stories from your own experiences and ideas.

Step 1: Pitch

A strong online presence is an essential part of any photographer’s business and it’s necessary to present a polished and professional shop front. However, it’s just as important to deliver a sense of your own personality to prospective clients. Let’s face it, everyone wants to be a photographer these days! You can’t rely on your image making capabilities alone to win contracts; you’ve got to show you’re cool to work with too! In this chapter, we’ll run through building websites, curating an Instagram feed, the art of negotiation and how to handle yourself on client calls – essentially, everything you need to start landing work and getting paid for the images you make.

Step 2: Prep

By failing to prepare, you prepare to fail - Benjamin Franklin

I live by the above quote, and I am meticulous when it comes to shooting preparation, from building mood boards and shot lists right through to considering the psychological properties of colour. A vast amount of planning and prep work is needed ahead of the shoot day. In this chapter, we’ll dig into these different tasks and techniques, which will help you work more efficiently and produce more impactful images

Step 3: Shoot

Shoot day has arrived! All your planning and creative preparation have led to today. In this chapter, I’ll offer tips for working with models and talent, detail the type of lenses and camera settings I use, and provide some tried and-tested lighting strategies. I’ll also run through a range of shooting techniques for you to experiment with.

Step 4: Edit

Welcome to the edit suite! I really love this part of my job, as it’s where I get to actually work with the photographs captured on shoot day and really begin to pull a story together. In this chapter, we’ll run through the basics, like importing images from your card into Lightroom, establishing naming conventions, folder structures and using rating systems. We’ll also touch on colour grading within Lightroom, creating presets and adding film-inspired imperfections. We’ll then finish with a relatively detailed and crucial section on backing up your images.

Step 5: Deliver

Congratulations – you’re nearly there and your wrap party awaits! Long-standing relationships and repeat clients are the goals for a freelancer, so it pays to make every interaction you have with a client as professional as possible. Don’t fall at this final hurdle. Delivering photographs to a client in a timely, efficient manner will stand you in good stead for future work. In this chapter, we’ll look at file types, colour profiles, sharpening images and a slick web based image-delivery system.

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My dad is a Rasta man. He was born in the mountains. A real, real Rasta man...

He had a marijuana farm, so we only ate when people bought our weed. And we never ate meat. Whenever we caught fish in the sea, he’d make us throw them back. There were ten of us, so we never had a big education. But he taught us to love people. And to love God. And to be happy. Sometimes after school we’d all go swimming at a place called Pirates Cave. The land was owned by a man named Dread Lion, and he had lots of dogs. We could never walk across the property so we swam the whole way there. And if Dread Lion ever saw us, we had to quickly jump off the cliffs. That’s how I learned to dive. Now I dive for the tourists and they give me tips. I save the coins in a little pan, and pick at it when the seas are rough. I’d like to buy a little house one day. And maybe have a boat. And a nice woman to take care of me. But if I don’t get all the things I want, I won’t complain. I’m going to love God the same way. And treat people the same way. And be happy the same way.

NEGRIL, JAMAICA

My husband got involved with a younger woman at work...

I was relaxed about it at first. He’s thirteen years younger than me. But then she got pregnant. Luckily through the divorce process I had the opportunity to take over this hole-in-the-wall place with no heating, which I turned into an art studio. And now I’m living my best life. Everything is for sale except the pink chandelier and the dog. Anyone is free to stop by at any time. You can eat or drink whatever you want. All the young people in the neighborhood love me. I’m the oldest person in our friend group. Everyone else is in their twenties or thirties. They call me Queen Mama. I call them my adopted kids. I always help them with their school projects and resumes and interviews. I only ask one thing in return. Each of them has to teach me one new thing every week: a piece of music, a trend, an idea. Just so I can stay up to date. Before you take the photograph, let me go inside and put on some makeup. We were out until two last night.

AMSTERDAM, THE NETHERLANDS

My parents aren’t giving me the freedom to be responsible...

Mama’s fine. But Papa is an Egyptian father. He wants me to always be in a safe, cozy home. Recently I wanted to go on an educational trip to Sri Lanka. I begged him. I said, ‘Please, I’ll be living with a family. I’ll call you ten times a day.’ But he wouldn’t listen. I locked myself in my room and cried. I wanted that experience. I wanted to meet beautiful people, and eat beautiful food, and take beautiful photos. I know my dad very well. He just doesn’t trust people. He thinks that I’m naïve. He thinks that everyone who helps you wants something in return. But that’s not why I help people. I love people. I love languages. I can even speak a little Hindi. I want to see every village and every city. I even want to work for NASA one day. I love physics and astronomy. But Papa thinks astronomy is a bad idea. He doesn’t get it. It’s not that he doesn’t understand the stars. He just doesn’t understand me.

ALEXANDRIA, EGYPT