Suggested Books and Magazines

These are ALL books I've found to be very helpful. I first list photography books, then books helpful for photography business, then books about where to shoot.

Most photo books are either so-so technical books about f/stops and shutter speeds, or portfolios of other photographers' work. Very few actually help you create better photographs by combining necessary technical fluency with the inspiration of creative arts.

The Ansel Adams books have been the primary references from which most other technical photo books and magazines derive for decades. The Master loved to teach, and in these books Ansel reveals how he did what he did. You need to read these. They are a slow read because Ansel packs every paragraph with more useful information than entire chapters of lesser books.

The others are the very few I've found that discuss how to create a good photograph, instead of a merely technically correct one.

If you only can get one photography book, go for the first Brenda Tharp book. She covers more about how to make great photos than any other single book.

The Steve Simmons "View Camera" book is the best way to understand how to use the many different kinds of view cameras. View cameras are easy if you want them to be.

Your public library ought to have at least the Ansel Adams books for you to borrow. Most libraries also have the Simmons and Grill and Scanlon. I found these first at my library, and then broke down and bought most of them since they are such great references.

Art & Technique

Creative Nature & Outdoor Photography by Brenda Tharp. What a great book! It is loaded with great work and explains, quite unlike other books, how to make the subtle adjustments needed for real photography. For instance, it shows the subtle effects of an 81C versus 81B filter and why you care. This is why this book is so much better than all the other dull technique books loaded with irrelevant examples of ugly over-manipulation. This book also covers seeing and composition and well, that's why I recommend it out of the thousands of other photo books out there. You'll learn a lot from this.

Ansel Adams: The Negative Here's how I learned the Zone System and everything I ever need to know about exposure. Ansel even explains the system for use with color and point-and-shoot cameras! It may be a bit advanced, and is also the clearest explanation there is. Read carefully. You need to know this.

Ansel Adams: An Autobiography Little, Brown & Co. 1985: This is great! Ansel spills everything about how to do commercial photography for a living and how to make expressive images. You need to read this if you think it's easy being a photographer. Ansel explains how he had to slave away doing commercial photography full time from 1930 through the 1970s just to make ends meet . He had to get fellowships (grants) to afford to get away to make the photos we all love today.

He slaved away for AT&T, PG&E, Life, and Fortune. He's pretty clear about his complaints with this sort of work. He shot for money since he was a teenager, starting in 1920 shooting class photos. He ran ads in 1940 offering to make photos and offer private instruction. He faked it all with the best of them, photographing altered loaves of bread, cement plants, clothes and turkeys for money.

The book is loaded with experience about getting in business and getting into art. How did he ever sell any art at all? He had a friend in the art world introduce him to existing art buyers who insisted they buy Ansel's work.

He also explains how to make an expressive work of art as opposed to a simple snapshot when talking about his Monolith image. Actually he talks a lot about art, what it means, and how to create it. This is a magnificent book. Ansel is quite clear: he considers himself an artist who uses technology to express himself. He was not a photographer or a technician.

He stresses importance of getting written contracts, and even with them he was cheated.

This great book coincidentally is the same size (but weighs more) than my 12" iBook laptop computer.

John Shaw's Nature Photography Field Guide Loaded with current information about nature photography.

The New Nikon Compendium is my favorite guide to the Nikon system. The first edition Nikon Compendium from 1993 and the slightly older second edition from 2003 here published by Hove are also good.

These compendia are loaded with refreshingly correct information as to what was made when and what features work on which cameras, answering exactly the sort of emails I get from people all the time. They also cover all the cameras, motors, finders, lenses, flashes and other accessories. The newest edition covers digital cameras and historic rangefinders. It's not cheap and it's worth every penny since you won't have to buy all the other Nikon guides out there.

Nikon guides are like light meters: are are all useful, but no two agree 100%. Even Nikon's own printed catalogs can disagree with themselves. For instance, Vol. 6 of the Nikon USA full line product guide shows a photo of the 300/2.8 AF-S next to the listing for the 300/4 AF, and the AF-S 80-200 is shown for the 80-200 non-AFS. These goofs are common, which is why you shouldn't spend much time reading guides and why I started making my own observations and writing them down. That's how this website came to be: personal notes about my own gear so I wouldn't forget.

Of all the other Nikon guides, Moose Peterson's are my favorites. Unfortunately for gearheads he's gotten out of the guide business and fortunately for photographers he stresses photography itself. Unlike most guide writers who are authors first and photo hobbyists second, Moose is a real photographer. His guides are written from a seasoned point of view.

Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain by Betty Edwards. This may help you to see better, which is the most important part of photography. Yes, it's aimed at artists who draw as opposed to photograph, and yes, the concepts of seeing are identical. You can see previews at the link.

How to See: A Guide to Reading Our Manmade Environment and Visual Adventures in a World God Never Made Both are out of print by George Nelson. These links take you to Amazon who has them used.

The Complete Nikon Rangefinder System by Robert Rotoloni is the authoritative work documenting the 1950s Nikon rangefinder camera system for collectors. This is the largest and most complete compilation of everything Nikon made, excepting the SLR cameras and lenses, from 1932 - 1964. It even includes many never-manufactured prototypes. See my full review of this book.

Eyes of Nikon is Nikon's own March, 1985 book covering their AI-s manual focus lenses at their peak. The world didn't know, but Nikon was done designing manual focus lenses. It was time to document them forever in this soft-cover art book that came in its own slip-case. Internally, Nikon was busy working on the still secret AF lenses.

Every AI-s lens has it's own page or two of fame. This book has been out of print since 1985, never again repeated in Nikon's 90 year history.

Luckily, like the manual lenses, there are plenty of these books around, so they go for about $10 used.

Business

How to Win Friends & Influence People by Dale Carnegie. If you want to be a professional photographer you need to know this more than photography. Some few people already have this knack. Most people, including myself, don't. I read this in 1986 and it changed my life forever. I used to think that arguing my point and telling people what to do were the way to get them to do what I want. Nope! You have to swallow your pride, stroke their ego, appear to nobler causes and voila!, you can get almost anyone to do what you need them to. If everyone read this we'd have no fights and everyone would get along for the better. It's the best eight bucks you'll ever spend.

You Can Negotiate Anything by Herb Cohen. I've read many books and spent many days in seminars back when I was a Senior Manager in a multibillion dollar company. Nothing ever taught me anything that wasn't covered in one read of this great book. Want to get top dollar from happy photo customers? Read this. It's the second best eight bucks you'll ever spend.

Where to Shoot

People often ask me where to go photograph in San Diego. These Andrew Hudson "Photo Secrets" books are my best suggestion. Not only do they tell you where, but they also tell you when and how and any other restrictions and details you'll find helpful. Laugh if you want, but he even shows drawings of where to put your tripod, so if you want suggestions, this book has it all, maybe too much for most people! They are very well organized and easy to use in the field. I have both the Northern California and San Diego books and love them. Pay attention: the San Diego book also covers Balboa Park and the Northern California book also covers Yosemite; I'm unsure if the two other books offer any more details on those places.

more books in association with Amazon.