A great book covering landscape photography processes, thinking and creativity
Working the Light
A Landscape Photography Masterclass
By Joe Cornish, Charlie Waite, David Ward and Eddie Ephraums
Argentum, 2006
ISBN: 1 902538 46 3
Another unusual book from Argentum, this one focuses in a broad way on landscape photography. The four authors take a section of the book each:
* Foreword – Eddie Ephraums
* Wilderness landscapes – Joe Cornish
* Inhabited landscapes – Charlie Waite
* Inner landscapes – David Ward
In each of these, apart from the foreword, the author begins by describing their own working method, motivations and current projects. Following each author’s statement section comes a Gallery Workshop where generally great quality submitted images are displayed along with great pieces of advice, displayed as tips by each image. A critique section then follows each Gallery Workshop. Here each of the submitted images that have been used is analyzed and critiqued by the authors.
This format works very well. It does have the feeling of attending a workshop, something the authors intended. It is appropriate that not all the images pass muster completely in the Critique section, as you can learn a great deal from people’s mistakes and the authors thankfully do not pass up this opportunity. However, all of the images are quite striking, even if some work better than others.
You will learn much about landscape photography in particular, and photography in general, from this book. The sections on the authors’ own work is insightful. The tips along with the submitted images teach much and then this is vastly expanded by the image critiques. These can teach you much if you carefully consider each image yourself before reading the authors’ comments.
This is a great book. If you have any interest in landscape photography, buy this book.