Amazon.com
What makes or breaks a picture? Composition, of course, and perhaps less obvious but equally fundamental--light. "Subtle or dramatic, the impact of light on an image completely alters how that image is perceived," asserts Jim Zuckerman, who discusses the qualities of light--direction, diffusion, harshness--and how to use them as creative tools. There are many impressive color photographs (including twilight panoramas of Rio de Janeiro and interiors of Spanish architectural wonders), but few illuminate Zuckerman's text like his multiple images of a bikini-clad model on a beach, taken during a rapidly-changing sunset. While he is generous with technical details and data, he does not cover black and white photography.
Customer Reviews:
Good library addition.......2002-11-05
Mr Zuckerman's detailed & deep discussion of aspects of all the photos in the book gives insight into the process behind each one.
Great reading or for just plain inspiration.......2001-07-26
The photos in this book is worth the price alone. The cover is probably one of the best safari photos I've seen to date and just makes me want to make a trip out to Africa! The great part is the techniques and technical data is shared so you can know exactly what was done. In any case the other great thing about this book is many of the photos are shown in different light. Similar books only show you the subject in the light the photographer thought was best. Highly recommended.
Fine book on the most basic of topics - using natural light.......2001-07-02
One of the hardest things to learn about existing light photography is how things will appear on film under various lighting conditions. This book explains most common situations clearly, and illustrates them beautifully with a selection of the author's fine images.
Look elsewhere.......2001-05-16
The book is divided into 'Sunrise', 'Early Morning/Late Afternoon', 'Midday', 'Sunset', 'Twilight', 'Overcast Conditions', 'Interios' and 'Special Conditions'. Each chapter has a series of photographs with describing text and technical details for each shot. Zuckerman is using medium format (and almost exclusively Velvia), although the book is by no means restricted to any particular format. If you have some other book describing exposure, there's not much new in here. The text feels very repetetive, saying the same over and over again only with different words.
This is the first book I've bought by Zuckerman and it will most likely be the last. I didn't even feel like finishing this one. I find his photographs mostly boring, soulless, stereotypical and unimaginative. Some are so clichés it's almost funny, yet also demotivating. But what can you expect from a photographer that studies "postcards in book stores or gift shops" as the "first things I [Zuckerman] do when I'm shooting the scenic highlights of any city, whether foreign or domestic" (p. 82).
I also have John Shaw's "Nature Photography Field Guide" and it's definitely better on the text side. Zuckerman's book adds little to what you can get from Shaw's book, and the latter is far more comprehensive. Shaw's photography is better than Zuckerman's too.
I give this book one star as it gives so little, both in terms of text (there are far better and more comprehensive books) and pictures (postcards).
Great Movitator, Good Technical Detail.......2001-02-13
Although there may not be a tremendous amount of new information here for serious photographers, the author offers a lot of reinforcement of basic techniques applied to specific lighting situations. It was very helpful that the book is organized by categories of lighting such as sunrise, mid-morning, etc. Many of the photographs are excellent and motivating.
Book Description
Clifford Geertz, one of the most influential thinkers of our time, here discusses some of the most urgent issues facing intellectuals today. In this collection of personal and revealing essays, he explores the nature of his anthropological work in relation to a broader public, serving as the foremost spokesperson of his generation of scholars, those who came of age after World War II. His reflections are written in a style that both entertains and disconcerts, as they engage us in topics ranging from moral relativism to the relationship between cultural and psychological differences, from the diversity and tension among activist faiths to "ethnic conflict" in today's politics.
Geertz, who once considered a career in philosophy, begins by explaining how he got swept into the revolutionary movement of symbolic anthropology. At that point, his work began to encompass not only the ethnography of groups in Southeast Asia and North Africa, but also the study of how meaning is made in all cultures--or, to use his phrase, to explore the "frames of meaning" in which people everywhere live out their lives. His philosophical orientation helped him to establish the role of anthropology within broader intellectual circles and led him to address the work of such leading thinkers as Charles Taylor, Thomas Kuhn, William James, and Jerome Bruner. In this volume, Geertz comments on their work as he explores questions in political philosophy, psychology, and religion that have intrigued him throughout his career but that now hold particular relevance in light of postmodernist thinking and multiculturalism. Available Light offers insightful discussions of concepts such as nation, identity, country, and self, with a reminder that like symbols in general, their meanings are not categorically fixed but grow and change through time and place.
This book treats the reader to an analysis of the American intellectual climate by someone who did much to shape it. One can read Available Light both for its revelation of public culture in its dynamic, evolving forms and for the story it tells about the remarkable adventures of an innovator during the "golden years" of American academia.
Customer Reviews:
Where was the editor?.......2007-08-03
There is a lot to gain by reading Geertz; his knowledge and insight are wonderful. However, I don't think I have ever read anyone that uses run-on-sentences to the extent that he does. To pull the message out of his writing is like looking for the proverbial needle in the haystack. I can't imagine how an editor allowed this verbal diarrhea to go unchecked. I can't tell if he is suffering from ADD or is simply pretentious. If you can get past all that, it is well worth reading.
Geertz at his best, Available Light.......2000-07-03
Any student of culture in the "social studies" sense who has picked up a new book and found inside a "kindred spirit," as I did 40 years ago with Albert Camus and, more recently, with Clifford Geertz, has a treat in store with Geertz' most recent, perhaps last, offering: Available Light: Anthropological Reflections on Philosophical Topics (Princeton UP, 2000).
Right from the Preface, this flight is "Go for orbit." While seemingly bidding farewell to us, and this "vast inelegance" (attributed by Geertz to Stevens), Geertz lifts one's thoughts to uncommon heights using broad, galloping strokes in particular detail, kept on track with parenthetical interjections, self-depricating personal and professional reminders, and living proofs that long sentences need not be incomprehensible.
Although it is hard to know whether Available Light would have had the same impact, had I not spent the last two years updating my 1960s cultural anthropology education, I believe it would have helped to read it first, rather than last, before reading Interpretation of Cultures, Local Knowledge, Works & Lives, and After the Fact, as well as many non-Geertz offerings.
Had Available Light come to hand before I read 3 interesting, helpful, but turgid, volumes on ethnographic field work and methodology, in preparation for a retirement project I'm planning, I would surely have struggled less with any of the three. With 3 fundamental field work questions in a single sentence, Geertz made it all clear, the remainder being mostly "techniques" which those 3 books richly supplied. Where were you, Clifford, when I needed you?
Even more, had Available Light come to hand earlier in my self-tutorial sojourn, I would surely have struggled less with such basic concepts as "culture," "religion," and "semiotics." We who lay no great claim to extraordinary intellectual prowess can use Geertz' succinct definitional descriptions to collect, organize and parse the cacophony of competing definitions, perspectives, and outright agendas surrounding each such key anthropological concept.
Finally, the writing! You will rarely find such clear, lucid writing. It is a trait, I find, not unique to Geertz, but Geertz does it better than most. It is not simple writing - on the contrary! - but clear; few short sentences, as precision so often requires modulating interjection. Available Light could find valuable use by English and journalism students just for study of writing clarity!
If I have a gripe, it's only shared by Geertz with so many Harvard-trained so-called scholars, a propensity for uncommon vocabulary - not big words, mind you, but such uncommon ones that I, schooled so many decades ago, still race for the dictionary (where, incidentally, many do not occur). My working vocabulary is enormous, so I suspect "airs" when I encounter too many unknown words, even when they turn out to be well-suited to their context, and particularly when there is an equally-suitable, better-known synonym available.
One rejoinder: Early in Available Light, Geertz notes, he has not actually taught in many years. On the contrary, Professor Geertz, on the contrary! (Rod Borlase)
Great collection.......2000-06-28
This was a pretty good compilation of essays, both popular and lesser known. Very worthwhile!
Book Description
Lighting design, long regarded as a pragmatic and purely technical aspect of construction planning, has increasingly developed into a discipline of its own over the past years. This publication recognises recent developments by combining the technical sphere with an artistic perspective, centred on the question of the role of natural and artificial light in the perception of a variety of (urban) landscapes. The first section of the book describes techniques for creating nocturnal landscapes, analysing these according to typology (coastal, riverside, lakeside, mountain, forest, marsh, or quarry and industrial sceneries) and concept of illumination. We embark on a process of learning to read (illuminated) landscapes. The second section presents detailed documentation of 21 international case-studies arranged according to type and drawn, for example, from Great Britain, Germany, France, the Netherlands, Japan and Singapore.
Average customer rating:
- Some of the sexiest poems I've ever read
- An arresting collection of poetry
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Available Light
Marge Piercy
Manufacturer: Knopf
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
 20th Century
| Poetry
| United States
| World Literature
| Literature & Fiction
| Subjects
| Books
General
| Poetry
| United States
| World Literature
| Literature & Fiction
| Subjects
| Books
General
| Poetry
| Literature & Fiction
| Subjects
| Books
United States
| Single Authors
| Poetry
| Literature & Fiction
| Subjects
| Books
Piercy, Marge
| ( P )
| Poets, A-Z
| Poetry
| Literature & Fiction
| Subjects
| Books
Piercy, Marge
| ( P )
| Authors, A-Z
| Literature & Fiction
| Subjects
| Books
Similar Items:
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Mars and Her Children: Poems
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My Mother's Body
ASIN: 0394756916
Release Date: 1988-02-12 |
Book Description
Pierce's most compelling book of poems expresses the delights of the senses and the hard play of emotion. They celebrate the wonders of nature and explore the nature of love and friendship.
Customer Reviews:
Some of the sexiest poems I've ever read.......2002-06-07
Without a doubt, Marge Piercy is my favorite living poet. I was terribly disappointed to discover that this collection is out of print since it's my favorite. Her poems explore many ordinary life experiences--coming to terms with her relationship with her parents, her travels in Eastern Europe, celebrations of cats... My favorite poems in this collection are the ones celebrating sexuality. Piercy describes these relations in both earthy and spiritual terms. This is definitely not the poetry that put you to sleep in high school English class! Track down a copy and buy it!
An arresting collection of poetry.......2000-05-12
If you have not been exposed to modern poetry, to the extent that all you have are some fever dreams of a classroom with someone stressing meter and verse while you sat watching the clock, this book should open your eyes.
This is one of Marge Piercy's strongest works. The poem "Joy Road and Livernois" is worth the price of the book.
If you write poetry you will find the risks Piercy takes in her work instructive to your own writing--at least I have.
Customer Reviews:
Photographers are artists working in light.......2007-03-08
Could a painter produce great paintings without understanding the nature of his paints? A photographer doesnt work in oils or water colors, but in light. Read this and Michael Freemans other book, "Image" and your understanding of what makes a great photograph will soar. Freeman organizes this around 3 types of light, natural, photographic and others. He then explains different lighting equipment and arrangements. Try Laurer's "Design" for the further understanding of composition. The examples from photography and painting are fabulous.
Book Description
Digital Photography in Available Light is an inspirational guide as well as a structured learning tool for mastering the essential techniques. Learn how to choose the most appropriate digital camera for your workflow, manage your image files and process images using camera RAW. Try key capture techniques including exposure, framing the image and how to work with the available light in all situations. Explore different styles: panoramas, landscapes, environmental portraits and photo journalism. Understand ethics and law, how to plan a shoot and sell your work. Throughout youll learn the importance of image design, communication of content and essential techniques for competent and consistent image capture and creation. Includes a full glossary of terms.
* Everything you need to know to photograph in available light using a digital camera
* Learn all the essential skills and try out the invaluable activities and assignments
* Covers the whole workflow, including choosing a camera, asset management and camera RAW, shooting techniques, ethics and law and selling your work
Customer Reviews:
Don't Judge by the Cover!.......2007-09-30
The previous reviewers who commented on the lack of substantive information about available light shooting techniques, are correct. I've looked through this book carefully and it is like a dozen other beginning photography books I've seen, and that's how it should be titled. Sadly I believe the assertion that this book was mis-labeled intentionally, because there is so little inside that actually relates to available light shooting. This book, while it has some good information for beginners, is another inch deep, mile wide digital photography overview. When what it should be is mile deep, inch wide, pertaining mostly to working with available light indoors and out. A chapter on reflectors or flash is OK but as an extra, not the "meat".
Unless you're new to digital photography, look elsewhere. Focal Press should know better. They usually produce outstanding titles. This one OTOH, is average in every way except the photographic examples provided. But examples without detailed context, are useless.
A good book mainly because of the last chapter........2007-02-03
Up until this last chapter this is a basically just another how-to digital photography book. Nothing that 10 other books don't already have. However the last chapter covers the "photo-essay" which is almost worth the price of the book. This chapters covers a lot about making a photo-essay that I have not seen in other books.
Not About Available Light Photography.......2007-01-21
The authors of this book should be fined for false advertising. This book is NOT about available light photography. There is not a single chapter on available light photography. This book has a chapter on picking out a digital camera. This book has a chapter on using a FLASH and picking out a FLASH. This book discusses using reflectors and LIGHT MODIFIERS to beautify your pictures. This book is a basic, generic, all encompasing book about digital photography. I have read dozens of books that have nearly the exact same information as this book, which is probably why the authors tried to sell the book under a missleading title. If they tried to sell the book under an accurate title. . . "A beginners guide to digital photography." it would have dozens of other books with the same information and premise to compete with.
As a generic digital photography book, it is not bad, though not at all original. If you are looking for a generic digital photography book, you may whant to buy this book. If you want to buy a book on available light photography, you should not waste your money because there is not a single sentence in this book dedicated to photography using only available light.
An Engaging Book.......2006-12-17
First and foremost, this is an attractive book as every book on photography
should be. It is rich with relevant and interesting color photographs on each page.
It is not just a book about digital photography but one that shows how to use digital
photography to capture and manipulate images. If I were still teaching and teaching
a basic course in photography this certainly would be a book to consider. A well
written, well illustrated and engaging book
Awesome.......2006-10-26
This book is by far one of the best books I've read on photography.
The images and examples within the book are amazing, they really help to get the point across and makes me want to go out and take photo's.
The book is clearly laid out and is in a logical manner. The activities and summaries in each chapter really help. Marks thoughts on workflow came in very handy early on, helped to organise my existing photos and all my new ones which I've been taking while reading this book.
I found this book really easy to read and didn't get bored with it halfway through like many other books. I have been searching for a book like this for a couple of years now and I'm so happy to have finally found such a great book.
The activities in this book aren't mandatory but after finishing the book so quickly I'm now going back over the activities and getting even more out of it. As well as the activities in this book the Photoshop sections are great and were really helpful and will be a great reference.
I'm sure this book will keep on giving for a long time yet.
I highly recommend it.
Book Description
Better Available Light Photography is a practical guide to understanding the different kinds of lighting challenges that exist and how to overcome them in order to create great photographs. This includes photographing indoor sports, night sporting events, and special activities such as plays, holiday lights, and fireworks. User-friendly and full of practical advice, this book will help both amateur and professional photographers create quality images under less than perfect available light situations.
Often the most difficult, yet most rewarding, images are created when photographers are working under difficult lighting conditions. First, there is the challenge of meeting and overcoming technical obstacles that normally might prevent you from producing a well-exposed photograph. Second, photographs made under lighting conditions different from the "F16 and the sun over your right shoulder" instruction-sheet standard are more interesting.
Better Available Light Photography is written for the amateur or aspiring professional photographer who has been frustrated in trying to create useful images under less than optimum lighting conditions. This includes photographing sports indoors, night sporting events, special activities such as plays, holiday lights and even fireworks. User friendly and full of real world advice, this book will help readers discover the joys of creating images when photographic conditions are at their most difficult.
· Experience-based solutions to lighting problems
· Offers a broad sampling of different lighting conditions
-8 page color insert
Customer Reviews:
A good book for beginners.......2002-01-22
This was my first "real" book on photography, and I must say it helped me a lot.
I changed my point of view when I was behind my own camera,
because of the stories Joe and Barry described.
It is easy and fun to read.
No follow through........2001-07-12
I expected a lesson in advanced photography. The text was informative, the photographs were not. Many example photographs that were supposed to instruct me in the use of colored gels on flashes or lights were printed in black and white! What a disappointment!
nice book, but..........1999-06-23
i would have appreciated more than what basically amounts to a beautifully written and presented Nikon sales pitch.
This book seems geared more toward people with extradisposable incomes or professionally funded camera setups, not an avid amateur enthusiasts.
great ideas about available light photography.......1998-11-10
The book does an excellent job of taking the photographer behind the camera. It does this by explaining how the photographs are made.
It is a defenite buy for anyone wanting to improve their skills in low light photography.
Book Description
The techniques illustrated in this handbook inspire photographers to take photographs when they would otherwise put their camera away—in low-light and nighttime situations. A comprehensive discussion of color and tone teaches photographers how to change their overall perceptions in low-light environments and adjust their exposure settings and filters to suit a variety of light levels. The most adverse lighting situations are covered, such as floodlit cityscapes, lightning, sunsets, stage shows, and fireworks. Tips on taking advantage of the digital environment's ability to manipulate and enhance low-light images both during and after the photo shoot are offered and technical information on both cameras and the latest software is discussed.
Customer Reviews:
Get the information from the net.......2005-12-15
For the cost of the book you can pay for one month of an internet connection and get all the extrememly "basic" information you need. Cope offers nothing beyond the very minimal information you can get from just fooling around with your camera for an hour.
There are much better books out there and the web for the price.
In the Dark.......2005-12-10
There are enough differences between film and digital media and cameras that different approaches exist with regard to photographing under specialized conditions. Conditions of night and low-light certainly fall into that class, and these are the conditions that this book tries to address.
Cope's approach is subject-centered, that is, he examines photography from the point of view of what is being photographed rather than from an equipment point of view. He begins with a brief discussion of light and color, in which he focuses on white balance. White balance is a control that many digital cameras have that allows for adjustments for color temperature of light. Then he moves on to a consideration of landscape photography, with an emphasis on sunset and sunrise. He next discusses photography in an urban environment, and then special events, like concerts, Christmas and fireworks. After discussing portraits, he talks briefly about the tools available for digital photography including cameras and photo-editing software. There are a few appendices including ten tips for low-light photography and a discussion of reciprocity failure. His book is essentially a catalog of reduced-light photographing conditions.
As a user of a digital single lens reflex, I was looking for tips on how to use my camera in reduced light conditions. Specifically, I was interested in what I consider to be the most useful of digital functions, the histogram (a display on many cameras showing the distribution of tonal values in a picture) and the highlight function. I realize that low-end digital cameras may not have these functions, but I also think that people in the market for this book will have cameras that are so equipped. I also know that these functions can be particularly useful for reduced light photography although they have certain quirks. Yet this book had only a brief reference to the histogram function in the description of camera controls, and none to the highlight function.
Instead of concentrating upon using the special capabilities of digital cameras in reduced light situations, the digital aspects were usually only mentioned in post-capture processing, and then at a level of detail that was too general to be of much help. (However, he did spend more time on blending modes in Photoshop than most authors of similar work.)
Another example of his approach was in the discussion of reciprocity failure, a phenomenon of film, resulting from long exposures. He does acknowledge that a similar phenomenon exists for digital cameras in the form of noise. But he fails to discuss any way to deal with the problem. Yet many cameras offer an optional noise reduction function (although at a cost in terms of how quickly one can make exposures). Moreover, some editing software also offers post-capture noise reduction.
In another review, I faulted Lee Frost's "The Complete Guide to Night and Low-Light Photography" as being outdated because it did not consider digital methods, but I think the digital photographer would be better served by reading that book than this one.
Book Description
Discusses the use of high-speed films; camera handling for steadiness; lenses; the correct film for tungsten lighting, fluorescent lighting, and mercury-vapor lamps; and filters. Includes tables that give exposure recommendations for taking photographs in typical existing-light situations, such as in the home, outdoors at night, and in public places. 88 pages (200 illustrations), 8-1/2 x 11.
Customer Reviews:
Great summary for a workshop with assignments.......2003-03-17
This small book summarizes almost everything the begginer to intermediate available light photographer needs to know (zone system not included - buy Adams "The Negative"), and includes several technical tables, understandably mentioning only Kodak products. It's pleasant to find a book that describes what I have been using for years without having read it before.
Not very impressive.......1999-08-09
This books explains the very basic knowledge of available-light photography, like when and how to use a tripod. Additional information is given about how to choose and use the right (Kodak-) film for specific situations. Thus I can recommend this book only to beginners in this field or people with their own lab. The photographs in this book are old and not very impressive.
Excellent.......1999-06-14
Although the example pictures look like they were taken quiet some time ago, this book is very up-to-date in my opinion. I've searched through the book stores, and I think that this is the best guide for this particular topic. Easy to read, good examples, etc., "suggested exposure settings" table that comes with it, is very useful for a beginner like me.
Average customer rating:
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Available Light Photography: How to Shoot Without Flash in All Light
Lou Jacobs
Manufacturer: Amphoto Books
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
General
| Photography
| Arts & Photography
| Subjects
| Books
Lighting
| Photography
| Arts & Photography
| Subjects
| Books
General
| How-to
| Photography
| Arts & Photography
| Subjects
| Books
Equipment
| Photography
| Arts & Photography
| Subjects
| Books
ASIN: 0817435492 |
Customer Reviews:
OK but not great.......2000-07-17
You don't have to be out of batteries to try available light photography. As this heavily-illustrated book explains, sometimes you can get better photos by not using flash, even if you could.
Available light is not necessarily the same as low-light. It can include bright outdoors sunlight, existing indoor light whether sunlight coming through windows and/or artificial light, and low-light and night photography.
Maybe it's because I've been reading several photography books lately, but this book doesn't have many new ideas. I would've liked a section on outdoor portraiture without fill-flash.
On the other hand, a section on mixed indoor light and a section on light angles were helpful.
Books:
- The Camera (Ansel Adams Photography, Book 1)
- The Carving of Mount Rushmore
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- The Dark One (The Wild Wulfs of London)
- The Fearless Flier's Handbook: Learning to Beat the Fear of Flying with the Experts from the Qantas Clinic
- The Glass Castle: A Memoir
- The Hunchback of Notre-Dame (Signet Classics)
- The Little Soul And The Earth I'm Somebody!: A Children's Parable Adapted From Conversations With God (Young Spirit Books)
- The Measure of a Man: A Spiritual Autobiography (Oprah's Book Club)
- The New Nikon Compendium: Cameras, Lenses & Accessories since 1917 (A Lark Photography Book)
Books Index
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