wdj's blog/

I finished reading two books on composition and design in photography recently which I thought were excellent (and were also highly recommended by some reviewers). They are

• Harald Mante, The photograph: composition and color design, Rocky Nook and Verlag Photographie, 2008 (translated from the German by Thomas C. Campbell, III),
• Torsten Andreas Hoffmann, The art of black and white photography, Rocky Nook, 2008.

Mante's book is about 185 pages and I'm guessing has an average of 3 color photos per page. The production quality of the images is very high in my opinion. Content of Mante's book are as follows. I've tried to illustrate ideas with photos, as Mante does. (Thanks to Mr Marc to figure out how to post other people's ipernity images in my blog. If anyone objects, please let me know and it will be removed. I also used some of my own. There is no intent to compare myself to Mante, who is IMHO a really great photographer. Hopefully the photos at least give the rough idea of his great book.)

1. No picture content without design
   

   metro, 1

   
   
2. The point
   

   sweetgum ball, 7

   barn swallow

   
   The point and disturbing points
   

   point and line, 1

   
   Two and three points
   

   building geometry, 4

   towers, 2

   
   Visual lines and visual shapes
   

   bridge pylons

   
   Clusters of points, detail and pattern
   

   red berries, 2

   
3. The line
   

   streak in the sky, 1

   
   Emergence of and forces acting on a line
   

   fence with green ivy

   
   Horizonal lines in landscape and portrait formats
   

   cemetery reflection

   
   Vertical lines in landscape and portrait formats
   

   Baltimore downtown, 49

   
   Diagonal and oblique lines in landscape and portrait formats
   

   Minneapolis architecture 3

   
   Irregular lines, groups of lines, line contrast, and line division
   

   snow waves

4. The shape
   Rectangle and square as shape and image plane
   
   Circle, triangle and oval as design elements
   
   Variants of shapes, irregular shapes, and contrasts of shapes
   
5. Universal contrasts
   Figure and ground: positive and negative forms
   
   Tonal contrast, light and lighting
   
   Representation of space, the effect of focal lengths
   
6. Color contrasts
   
   The primary and secondary colors, contrasts of hue
   
   Third order colors and quality contrast
   
   Complementary contrast and quality contrast
   
   Cold-warm contrast
   
   Actual color and apparent color, simultaneous contrast
   (the shades of red illustrate "apparent color")
   
   (the light gray window frame against the dark green seems lighter than the light gray against the light blue sky - illustrating "simultaneous contrast")
7. Using the tools
   Color harmony
   
   Static and dynamic composition, colors with distinct and indistinct edges
   (static - lines parallel to edges)
   (dynamic)
   (colors with indistinct edges)
   The imaginary shape: cutoff shapes
   (partial circles, brightness contrast)
   Seeing differently: vertical format
   
   Creative unsharpness
   
   Collecting photographs: the photographic series
   
   Representing time: the photographic sequence
   

Hoffmann's book is about 260 pages and averages about 1 b+w photo per page. As with Mante's book, the production value is excellent. Content of Hoffmann's book:

1. Choosing a good digital camera
2. An essential rule for digital black and white photography: always photograph in RAW mode
3. Drma through the use of filters
4. Overcoming cliched photos
5. Why are modes so important
6. Street photography
7. What does landscape mean in the 21st century?
8. Architectural photography
9. The graphic element in B+W photography
10. The poetry of melancholic moods
11. Abstracts
12. Surreal photography
13. Portraits
14. Man and surroundings
15. Mystic photography
16. Panoramic photography
17. What is pictorial composition
18. The golden ratio and the elementary construction
19. Triangular composition
20. Rhythm - recurring elements
21. Less is more - reduction and emphasis
22. Pictorial guides
23. Balance in a photo
24. Unusual perspectives
25. How to deal with the center of an image
26. Pictorial tension between two elements
27. The image within an image
28. Interesting irritations
29. The play of forms - conscious repetition of pictorial shapes
30. How to compose with blurred movement
31. Black and white from color
32. Partial manipulation with the lasso tool set
33. Retouching
34. Corrections with the distortion filter
35. New B+W conversion with PS CS3

Chapters 1-3 are on Tools and Fundamentals. The rest of the book does not depend significantly on whether you have a digital camera or not. Chapters 4-16 are on Photographic genres and concepts. Chapters 17 - 30 are on Rules of Composition.The remaining chapters are on Photoshop techniques but could probably also be done using GIMP.

Both books are very highly recommended. Matte's book is really a companion to Freeman's book The photographer's eye. However, Hoffmann's book is different and presents you with different compositional ideas.

I finally made it to 1000 images in my gallery!

Does anyone know how to find out the number of images of a member in a specific group? For example, how do I find out how many of my images are in the architecture group?