photography courses

[Dan Fleming]

Any books you'd recommend as must-reads?

I have found Bryan Peterson's Understanding Exposure and Learning to See Creatively to be fairly helpful for starting out. The one is more technical than the other, but photography takes both science and art! If you don't want to buy them, and live in the US (I don't know if you can do this outside the US, hence that caveat, someone more knowledgable can correct me), you can go to a bookstore, and pull the book off the shelf, read it, put it back. If it is really helpful then buy it, otherwise look at others in the section and find one that works for you. That is what I have done.

[Gina Franco]

My interests lay in portraiture (and, more specifically, the use of small off-camnera flashes in portraiture). My favorite book reflects that: Joe McNally's [i][url="http://www.amazon.com/Hot-Shoe-Diaries-Light-Flashes/dp/0321580141/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1267117148& amp;sr=8-1]Hot Shoe Diaries: Big Light from Small Flashes[/url][/i]. The only bad thing about Hot Shoe Diaries is that it's very Nikon centric. Other than that, the principles are still the same.


I also greatly respect the author of <span id="btAsinTitle"][url="http://www.amazon.com/Minimalist-Lighting-Professional-Techniques-Photography/dp/1584282304/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&amp;s=books&amp;qid=1267116414& amp;sr=8-3][i]Minimalist Lighting: Professional Techniques for Location Photography[/i][/url], Kirk Tuck, although I do not own the book.
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Thank you, Sean. And thanks so much for the links!

[Gina Franco]

Bryan Peterson's Understanding Exposure

This book comes up a lot in online discussions, mainly in passing. I'll take your advice and see if I can find it at the bookstore. I guess I'm looking for books that are both technically and creatively challenging, but that won't leave my understanding in the dust. Thank you!