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Designing a Photograph: Visual Techniques for Making Your Photographs Work | 
 enlarge | Author: Bill Smith
Brand: WATSON-GUPTILL
Category: Book
List Price: $24.95
Buy New: $12.80
You Save: $12.15 (49%)
New (21) Used (19) from $8.45
Avg. Customer Rating:  23 reviews
Sales Rank: 262187
Media: Paperback
Edition: 1st
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 144
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1.4
Dimensions (in): 10.9 x 8.4 x 0.6
MPN: 0817437789
ISBN: 0817437789
Dewey Decimal Number: 771
EAN: 9780817437787
ASIN: 0817437789
Publication Date: May 1, 2001
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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Product Description
During the 15 years since the first edition of Designing a Photograph was published, the field of photography has become much more competitive, with much more sophisticated standards. This revised and updated edition of the classic manual provides all the information photographers need to bring their art to the next level. Filled with practical, real-life examples and excellent step-by-step exercises, this valuable reference demonstrates techniques of composition, color, lighting, perspective, and more.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 18 more reviews...
 Outdated and VERY mediocre photography. March 12, 2008
I read a lot of photography books, and this one should definitely be avoided.
Even older books that have no references to digital photography can still be helpful since the principles of photography are still relevant regardless of the equipment... but at a minimum, the photography itself should be decent. This is supposed to be a book on visual technique, but the author's bland, amateur abstracts are painfully bad, and without any real technical information, this book is only good for filling my recycling bin.
I gave it one star because I bought it used 3rd party on Amazon for $0.32 + shipping.
The shipping was great, but I'd like my 32 cents back...
 Good Visual Tool July 3, 2007
This book is a good visual tool. It lacked slightly on the actual technique side. Not enough detail for the actual design of a photo. Was able to work around that however.
 Not for the novice May 9, 2007
For such a small book (page-wise), it conveys an enormous amount of information. Each page contains a photo with a textual description of the design philosophy behind it.
The concepts are presented quickly and without any extra frills. In many cases, I found myself overwhelmed with information without a great deal of elaboration, so the central concept of each photograph did not always come through clearly.
I would recommend this book for intermediate photographers. If you're a novice, I would heartily recommend Understanding Exposure: How to Shoot Great Photographs with a Film or Digital Camera (Updated Edition).
My first serious photographic composition handbook April 19, 2007
I have first bought this book in 1986 and, I believe, I have learned a substantial lesson from it throughout the years.
True, the book is not for impatient seekers of an instant gratification, or for people who need to be guided by the hand through the process of learning. But, in my opinion, that's its strength and not weakness. It makes you strive to understand the author's vision and concepts he presents. If you get step-by-step instructions on how to obtain any kind of a result (not just in photographic composition), the best you can count on is learning how to imitate or emulate.
The key to successful teaching is to stimulate the learning person to think, experiment and practice on his/her own and to trigger creativity in them - and this task is amply realized by Bill Smith in his excellent work.
By the way, his book is as much relevant to me now - in the digital era - as it's been twenty years ago.
 Useful Supplement to First Edition, 1985 June 29, 2005
10 out of 10 found this review helpful
The first edition of this book is one of my two favorites on compositional matters, the other being Michael Freeman's Image. The first edition stands out among all other books on composition and design in that Smith presents composing from the point of view of Gestalt visualization, presented theoretically by Richard Zakia in Perception and Photography and its update, Perception and Imaging.
The value of this second edition to me is to supplement the first edition with the new photographs. I don't think the second edition stands well on its own.
What the first edition did much better is mainly in the captions to the photographs. In the first edition, Smith discussed at length the visual aspects and structure that were present in each photo to explain how these aspects caused the eye to move throughout the frame. The captions in the second edition are much less devoted to the structure of the image and more like so many others' books in talking more about how he came upon the opportunity to take the image.
The text in the first edition is also more deeply written, while that of the second repeats the first, or cuts some good material.
I have spent several years, intermittently, finding what has been written about composition in photography and other two-dimensional visual arts, and my conclusion to date is rather grim. Using various databases, I have found several dozen books going back to the late 19th century. In general, the best writing on composition is out of print by many years.
I have not been able to find any U.S. art program that teaches composition or design as a stand alone subject; it is almost always blended into drawing classes as exercises and critiques. I'd like to hear that I am wrong about this. Composition is still taught as its own subject in several curricula in Germany.
For photographers, especially amateurs who do not undertake long training programs, a thorough look at the elements, principles, history, and techniques of composition with lots of diagrams, decently sized illustrations of good, bad, and almost, and many comparative problems is long overdue.
The approach that Smith took in his first edition is a significant component of part of what I have in mind.
My recommendation is that if you buy the second edition, then seek out the first to read over and over again with the second edition along side.
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