The Art of Outdoor Photography

The Art of PhotographyI just finished reading The Art of Outdoor Photography (Amazon). I took it out from the library. Twice. Extended my three week time each time too. Not the most riveting of authors. I had a hard time getting into it.

Boyd spends a lot of time in each of the chapters discussing film, film choice, and whether to shoot at 25, 50, or 75 ISO. My camera doesn’t take film, and only starts at 200 ISO. Does the fact that the book doesn’t deal with digital mean it has nothing to offer? No, but it feels dated. The revised edition is from 2002.

The concepts and techniques of outdoor photography and how to compose and visualize are not different on film or digital. He does have some good things to say about “seeing”, and light in the first chapters. There is a great chapter with picture examples of how perspective changes with the use of different lenses. He also has chapters on composition and using shutter speed creatively. This takes us up to about page 70. I feel this was the better part of the content.

The rest of the chapters are short sections on film types, and different outdoor shooting situations, like landscapes, close ups, underwater, and travel. It doesn’t feel like the individual chapters get to give enough attention to their subject matter.

He has some great pictures every once in a while, but most of the images are not very inspiring. I guess that on a whole, I would recomend looking for the book in your library if you want to give it a read.