If you could see my office and the stacks of books that I have to climb over to get to my computer each day, you'd know what an important part of my life books are. So rather than just pump my own books on this site, I thought it might be fun to share some of the books that have inspired & informed me at one time or another. Besides, you need more books in your life--we all have to hoard something.
Widow's Walk Robert B. Parker
OK, I freely admit it, I'm a major Robert B. Parker fan. As furious as I get with him at times for having two-dimensional cartoon characters and interrupting the storyline with that awful Susan nonsense, he's still a wickedly good storyteller. There are few better page-turner authors than Mr. Parker. I found this book a bit different because there were so many characters introduced and there seemed to be a lot of confusion about what they were all doing. But the book kept my attention despite that and in the end I found out I enjoyed this book a great deal. Lots of people get shot, and you can't beat a Parker book with lots of gun play!
Sadly, Robert B. Parker passed away on January 18, 2010 at his home in Cambridge, Massachusetts--while sitting at his writing desk. He was 77 years old. And what a crime that such a fine writer left us so soon. May Spenser live forever.
Michael Freeman is one of my favorite photo-book authors and
photographers and any time he puts out a new book I order it
automatically. His newest book The Photographer's Eyeis the
most ambitious and nicely illustrated book on composition and image
design that I've seen in many years--it is fantastic. Freeman starts
out the book with the traditional design topics--filling the frame,
dividing the frame, frames within frame, etc. And he covers basic
design ideas like balance (an excellent and often ignored topic),
dynamic tension, rhythm and many other topics. But the real beauty of
this book are his chapters on offbeat but extremely valuable topics
like "Intent" in which he talks about the reactive vs planned
composition, conventional or challening design themes and simpe vs.
complex designs. There is also has a great chapter on the "Process" of of
creating design that includes some excellent case studies on situations
that he has encoutnered and also, importantly, how art directors took
his compositions and then used them in layouts. Freeman talks about
knowing the publication you're shooting for and how to compose for
their needs--avoiding or planning for the gutter in a two-page spread,
for example.
My only two criticisms of this book (both minor) are that, while it's
192 pages long, it could easily have been twice as long and I would
have gladly paid twice as much (it retails for $29.95--but cheaper on Amazon). I hope that he
puts out a second or companion volume (perhaps just on studio work).
Also, and this is really minor, the book designer occasionally uses
black page backgrounds and they are very distracting and they cause
some of the images to look darker than they are (which I'm sure is the
opposite effect that they were looking for). Use gray backgrounds
if you absolutely have to change up from white!
This is, otherwise, a nicely produced book. There isn't a pro alive
that won't find a wealth of interesting ideas here and if I'd had this
book when I was learning photography, I
would nearly have memorized it. Great book--and a fantastic holiday
gift. If I had a star-rating system, I'd easily give this five stars.
The Snowflake Man: A Biography of Wilson A. Bentley by Duncan C. Blanchard
If you've ever seen a microphotograph of a snowflake and wondered how they were made, you're going to love reading about Wilson A. Bently--also known as the Snowflake Man. Bentley virtually invented the methods still used today for photographing snowflakes and between 1885 and 1931 he made more than 5,000 photographs of snowflakes--and they are spectacular photographs by any standard. Each photograph reveals a miracle of nature's invisible (to the naked eye, at least) design work--and each of the images are so different from one another they will just blow you away. Bentley, in fact, is generally credited with the line "no two snowflakes are alike." Moreover, Bentley pursued his dream in spite of great ridicule and, as you will see, led an inspiring life.
This biography by Duncan C. Blanchard is a plain spoken book and while it isn't the most gripping bio you'll ever read, the story is nonetheless fascinating and emotionally charged--it's absolutely worthile reading for the factual information alone. Bentley himself also published at least two books of his images: Snowflakes in Photographs and Snow Crystals. Both are in print as reprint editions.
If You Want to be a Writer, Read this Book
William Zinsser's On Writing Well has played a very important role in my writing life. It is, I believe, one of the best, if not the best, books ever written on the subject of nonfiction writing and I doubt that I would have succeeded in earning a living as full-time writer had I not discovered this book. It has changed the way that I look at writing and the way that I look at myself.
It was this book that gave me the confidence to trust in myself as a writer and to have the courage to insist that my editors allow me to write in the first person. No editor, in fact, has ever turned me down on that point and to my great surprise, most of them now insist on it. It was this sentence from the book that changed the way I approached writing on any topic: "For ultimately the product that any writer has to sell is not his subject, but who he is." It was the first time that any writing authority of Zinsser's stature (he was a professor of writing at Yale) gave me permission to say, "I'm the one writing this and I hope you'll find what I have to say (and who I am) interesting." I took his permission and ran with it and since then I have worked hard on keeping my end of that bargain.
Zinsser's book is like a roadmap to a cleaner, more spare and more human style of writing. He will teach you how to get rid of clutter, to say things simply and to surprise and delight your reader. If you read this book and apply Zinsser's philosophy and advice to your work you will become a better writer--immediately.
If you are thinking of writing for a living, or if you are a college student trying to write better papers, buy this book. It will be the best $10 you ever invested. And if your editor or professor says, "It's not proper to write in the first person" then just show them this book. If your editor or professor doesn't acknowledge Zinsser as one of the best writing teachers of all time, then you need a new editor/professor. No, you can't write news stories (not most of them, anyway) in the first person or advertising copy (although I have been paid to do just that), but you'll be surprised at how drastically your writing will improve the moment you step into view.
If you are a business writer, strangely enough you will probably be told that business writing can't be written in the first person. But if you have a few minutes sometime, look up Steve Jobs' commencement address at Stanford University and ask yourself if this could have been written without the "I" in it. It's one of the most brilliant pieces of writing I've ever read--it changed my life.
I've written a dozen books and I've published hundreds if not thousands of articles. I've had On Writing Well next to me every day of the 25 years that I've been a writer. I could not ask for a better companion or mentor. Thanks Mr. Zinsser.
Quick Recipes for Creative Fun: "Photoshop CS3 Photo Effects Cookbook" by Tim Shelbourne
One of unfortunate aspects of using Photoshop in your work every day--even (or perhaps, especially) when you've been
at it like I have since the very first version back in the early
1990's--is that often you get so involved in correcting and retouching images for purely technical reasons that you start to
forget how much fun the program can be on a completely creative level.
That's why I am having so much fun with Tim Shelbourne's new book Photoshop CS3 Photo Effects Cookbook
(O'Reilly; 2007). Shelbourne (a traditional "hand" artist for more than
20 years prior to going digital) has created a great book for
rekindling your creative visual spirit--and it covers a lot of creative ground.
The book is very well organized into a "cookbook" style compendium
that offers
53 different recipes for turning ordinary photos into very fun and
creative images. Shelbourne presents a wide range of interesting visual
tricks like creating woodcut
effects, turning portraits into caricatures, simulating rain,
simulating candlelight, adding water droplets (really fun!), adding
rays of light to interiors and landscapes and even
adding rainbows to your landscape photos. If you're ever bored with
your images, this book will send you off onto a blissful journey of
imagination.
Each of the ideas is covered in a quick step-by-step fashion in just a
few pages and Shelbourne (unlike yours truly) wastes no words in
explaining the techniques: what you get here are fast, easy-to-follow
steps that take you from start to finish. Shelbourne uses some great
photos and lots of screen captures of dialog boxes and toolbars so that
you it feels like you're looking over his shoulder at his monitor. The
layout of the book is clean and (thank you O'Reilly!) the steps are all
numbered so that you don't get lost following the progression of the
image (you'd be surprised how many publishers leave those numbers off).
The book is divided nicely into eight creative categories, including:
Tonal and Lighting Effects (including tips on the new Black and White
tool in CS3), Graphic Arts Effects (pen-and-ink drawing effects, for
example), Lighting Effects (things like creating a star-filled sky),
Natural World Effects (simulating sunsets, turning day into night),
Traditional Photographic Effects (creating an Infrared look, for
example, is nicely covered), Distortion Effects (how to clone with
perspective), Texture Effects (creating wood, stone, metal and other
surface textures) and Presentation Effects (some nice ideas for
creating frame effects).
The book is probably aimed at a moderately skilled Photoshop user, but
I would think anyone with a basic familiarity with Photoshop tools
would find the book simple to follow. In fact, I would highly recommend
the book to beginners because I think that when you're learning
Photoshop it helps if you can see how the basic tools can be used to
create exciting and fun visual effects quickly. And for someone like
myself that has been using Photoshop for more than 15 years, this book
is a really useful creative desktop reference for finding the fastest
ways to add visual effects. I learned a neat trick for adding
highlights to soft-focus images (pages 128-129) the very first time I
opened the book and I've already used it several times. I wish I'd
thought of this technique years ago!
A great book and, as I always say, any book is worth the price (in this
case a bargain at $29.99) if you get a single nugget of creative help.
In this case though, you'll get a ton of useful tips and ideas. For more on O'Reilly's great Photoshop and photo books, visit: www.oreilly.com
CS3 Cookbook by Tim Shelbourne
The Kodak Guide to Shooting Great Travel Pictures
by Jeff Wignall
I wrote this book a number of years ago for Fodor's Travel Publications and it remains a perrenial bestseller--though I'm guessing it's going to eventually go out of print and probably sooner rather than later. I was hoping Fodor's was going to have me update this to include more digital material, but so far they haven't.
This book is really more of an idea book that a technical manual and it's designed to help you see and capture interesting and beautiful scenes while traveling. The technical material is there, but it's basic and very easy to understand and applies to both film and digital cameras. This was a really fun book to write and in addition to my own travel photos it has essays by some great photographers, including: Boyd Norton, Katherine Karnow and Peter Guttman. If you're looking for a fun read to get you psyched up for your next vacation, this is it.
