Recommended Reading

Books used and recommended by us.

Scott Kelbys “Digital Photography Book”
Tackles the most important side of digital photography - how to take pro-quality shots using the same tricks top digital pros use. This book shows which button to push, which setting to use, when to use them, and nearly two hundred photographic "tricks of the trade". Each page covers just one trick, one concept that makes your photography better.

Bryan Peterson’s “Understanding Exposure: How to Shoot Great Photographs with a Film or Digital Camera”
Provides detailed lessons on the elements of exposure and how each relates to depth of field, freezing and blurring action, and shooting in low light, demonstrating a diversity of creative choices in exposing a picture.

Michael Freeman’s “The Photographer's Eye: Composition and Design for Better Digital Photos”
The Photographers Eye shows how anyone can develop an eye for seeing great digital photos. The book explores all the traditional approaches to composition and design, but crucially, it also addresses the new digital technique of shooting in the knowledge that a picture will later be edited, manipulated, or montaged to result in a final image that may be very different from the one seen in the viewfinder.

Michael Freeman’s “Mastering HDR Photography: Combining Technology and Artistry to Create High Dynamic Range Images”
Mastering High Dynamic Range Photography explains how to shoot specifically for HDR and discusses, in detail, the software available to combine multiple exposures into a single HDR image. Perhaps most importantly, HDR is revealed as a technology not of soulless automation, but precisely because it breaks with familiar photographic conventions one that requires judgement and artistry on the part of the photographer.

Steven Biver’s “Light: Science and Magic: An Introduction to Photographic Lighting”
This is not your typical how-to book! This is a tried-and-true how to understand book. How to understand and predict the size of light, types of reflections, and the family of angles. Master these principles and you can shoot any portrait, any surface, anywhere!

Ross Hoddinott’s “The Digital Exposure Handbook”
Ross Hoddinott unravels the fundamentals of this fascinating subject and presents it in a clear and easy-to-understand way. This practical, jargon-free guide will be an essential companion out in the field, helping photographers turn theory into practice and to achieve creative control over their images.

Michael Freeman’s Perfect Exposure: The Professional Guide to Capturing Perfect Digital Photographs
Clear, direct and guaranteed, Perfect Exposure looks at the way professionals work, and lays out the decisions and sequences with absolute clarity, while incorporating the latest, powerful post-processing techniques. Choosing the exposure for a photograph is both alarmingly simple, and infinitely complex. Simple, because there is ultimately only one dosage of light, controlled as it always has been, by a shutter speed, aperture and ISO setting. But arriving at the perfect exposure is also complex, because it affects everything in the image and its effect on the viewer.

Martin Evening's “Adobe Photoshop CS4 for Photographers: A Professional Image Editor's Guide to the Creative use of Photoshop for the Macintosh and PC
Adobe Photoshop CS4 for Photographers begins with an overview of the Photoshop interface and the fundamentals of how to use Photoshop, followed by how to configure and optimize your computer's performance to run the program and then it dives straight into the essentials of Camera Raw image editing. The Sharpening chapter shows how to use the Camera Raw controls to obtain optimum capture sharpening and noise reduction and the Essentials chapter outlines how to work with all the basic image adjustment tools that are in the program.
Practical workshops show you how to master the essential techniques, such as colour correction, retouching techniques, toning a black and white image, creating composite images and so on.


Martin Evening’s “Adobe Photoshop CS4 for Photographers: The Ultimate Workshop”
The authors describe in detail how to carry out some of their favourite Photoshop image editing and retouching techniques using examples taken from real-life professional shoots. The techniques described here don't just show you clever things you can do in Photoshop, they show how you can use Photoshop in a professional context, meeting the demands of art directors and fulfilling tricky briefs.

Collins’ “Complete Photography Manual”
Everything you need to know about photography, both digital and film, written by a team of experts. This comprehensive and superbly illustrated guide covers all aspects from basic composition to the latest digital know-how and digital darkroom techniques. Practical, inspiring and informative, Collins Complete Photography Manual takes you from choosing the right camera and understanding what different lenses can achieve, to creating the best possible composition. In addition, key techniques, such as image manipulation, are illustrated with stunning images and accompanied by easy-to-follow jargon-free text. There are separate sections on different themes, such as landscapes and nature, still life and sports shots, architecture, weddings, animals, and how to take a good portrait. In addition, professional tips throughout help you to avoid potential problems and show you how to get the best out of your camera and raise your level of photography.

Joe McNally’s “Hot Shoe Diaries”
In The Hot Shoe Diaries, Joe brings you behind the scenes to candidly share his lighting solutions for a ton of great images. Using Nikon Speedlights, Joe lets you in on his uncensored thought process—often funny, sometimes serious, always fascinating—to demonstrate how he makes his pictures with these small flashes. Whether he’s photographing a gymnast on the Great Wall, an alligator in a swamp, or a fire truck careening through Times Square, Joe uses these flashes to create great light that makes his pictures sing.

Julie Oswin’s “Contemporary Wedding Photography”
This user-friendly manual reveals the techniques needed to produce this contemporary style of wedding album, for professional photographers looking to update their methods, or for aspiring photographers wanting to break into this lucrative market. It includes all the advice you need, from preparation and planning before the wedding, to digital manipulation of your images and presentation to the couple after the event. It features comprehensive checklists, professional tips, tried-and-tested templates, advice boxes and step-by-step sequences to provide endless inspiration and guarantee successful shooting.