5 comments about History of Photography: From 1839 to the Present.

1. If you're even remotely interested in photography and its development, this book is a wonderful way to learn about it. It details the emergence of all the important photographic processes with just enough technical detail to be interesting and not so much as to be overwhelming. There are many pictures in it that provide examples and show how images changed over the years. It also includes the personal aspects of this history and how photography has affected our culture. The writing is smooth and easy to read. In short, I highly recommend it; you won't be disappointed.



2. As a student, I was forced to buy this book during my 2 year tenure at photography school. It remains one of the most comprehensive, detailed and well written references on the history of photography. History books can be a little "dry" to read but this one is exceptionally well written and covers a vast amount of ground in an admirable fashion.



3. I can't remember the first time I read this book, decades ago. Although it's quite dated in light of the advancements in digital photography in recent years, this is still the first reference to check for information about the first 140 years of photography. Even with Wikipedia available, this is the book I check for information. I happened to live in Rochester near the end of his time as curator of George Eastman House, and got to see first hand his influence on the medium. Newhall's book will remain on my shelf for as long as I am interested in photography.



4. The book is more than perfect, its content, the way its written. It was right on time with a big discount, but had a corner a little wrinkled.



5. This could have been dry subject matter, but it was both interesting and useful. As an avid designer that dabbles in photography, I found this to be a great book.

4 comments about The Vice Photo Book.

1. The images, people, and wide range of topics make this an endlessly fascinating addition to your library.
   Highly Recommended!



2. First off, if you are a fan of Vice, then you probably already own this book. And if you are a fan and don't, then shame on you! Second, this is a great book for anyone just interested in photography. It catalogs the history of Vice magazine through years worth of photography. It also has interviews and insights from nearly all of the contributors. There is a very large and varied collection of photos from both established photographers like Kern and McGinley, to up-and-comers like Warren. All in all, very high quality with some amazing imagery. A must have for modern photography lovers.



3. I have to keep yanking this back from my kids...an honest look at the world we rarely see or write about...let alone talk about. Nice peek into life.



4. This book has crazy pics from all over. Perfect for your modern living space setup. Not for kids because it contains some nudity.
   
   I bought this as a gift for my friend's herbal medicine shop and his customers love this book.

No comments about Christopher and the Boys (Bruno Gmunder Verlag).

5 comments about Writing, Directing, and Producing Documentary Films and Videos, Fourth Edition.

1. I find myself opening this book up over and over again . I have learned alot from the writer of this book . I would tell anyone who is going to make a documentary , they should have this book on there desk.



2. This book is a masterful resource for any filmmaker regardless of their expertise.

   No one has come close in their summation of the documentary process. It is 2001, the book was released in 1996, it is timeless. The best book on the market, a better book could only be devised by the author.

   Four years of preperation in one book. Every student, professional filmmaker, enthusiast should have it. I have even allowed persons/subjects whom I was documenting to read this book. It made the process that much easier. They were extremely thankful. PURCHASE THE BOOK.




3. There is little in written text that summarise the worth of this book. I was so moved by its detailed and incisive content and direction that I sold my kids to afford the time and space, the peace required to absorb the rivetting content.
   As I sat at my video production terminal I realised that the nirvana of books on docudrama had been produced. This is the sort of book that makes you go and get the authors name tattooed on your butt.
   Buy , buy , buy ..



4. Even while reading this book I was able to pitch an idea for an event and documentary project, my first, and gain acceptance for the project. The concepts are helpful as well as practical.
   I read a lot of books once I am interested in a subject and I would place this one at the top for documentaries.



5. In starting something new, the potential making missteps that can derail the whole process is always present. This book helps you avoid those and has advice on how you can develop a quality product that people will want to see. Very worthwhile.

1 comments about Neil Leifer: Ballet in the Dirt: The Golden Age of Baseball.

1. The book is fascinating, with many pictures never seen before, more interesting the explanations behind the pictures, a collectors item

5 comments about Roy Stuart: Volume 1 (Roy Stuart (Hardcover)).

1. This is by far the WORST photography book i bought - EVER !
   All the models are EXTREMELY HAIRY.
   Really bad taste.
   The book is so bad that I left it in my hotel room in NY as It didn't even worth carrying that weight.



2. im not sure what the previous reviewer expected - perhaps "the bald and beautiful" but what stuart does extremely well is he is able to capture the raw natural form of some very lovely women. so know what you are going for .. dont get a guinness when all you like is bud!



3. Considering the single-issue price of your modern adult magazine, this is an absolute bargain. Many hundreds of big glossy photographs of pathological sexuality, usually female-oriented and occasionally queer-minded, of both high artistic and deliriously prurient merit. If you're starting a Roy Stuart library, begin here.



4. This is a collection of erotic moments captured in pictures, by someone who actually seems to think this sort of thing should be fun. Yes, it gets a little kinky, and not all the bodies are glamor-perfect (not the problem one might think, as all the model choices seem very carefully considered), but Stuart doesn't seem so much interested in pushing the erotic envelope as finding out what's in it. And he's a pretty good photographer, in case anyone's wondering.



5. I would recommend this product to all that appreciate the erotic art, I would say that Roy Stuart is the best in this genre.

5 comments about The Film Director Prepares: A Complete Guide to Directing for Film and TV.

1. This book is an entirely interactive book as it contains a CD-rom that has a 3d storyboarding software that makes it absolutely remarkable in being able to manipulate the images in the book to experiment with concepts and precepts that the author is knowingly speaking about. The Directors Guild of America calls this book the definitive book for directors and encourages not only those who are learning to direct but those who already direct to hacve this book in their library. It is told from a very easy and understandable perspective and full of practical stuff about telling stories, saving production time during production, working with talent, directing various forms of television and most of all what it means to do coverage to tell stories. This is one book that you must have!



2. Practical and easy-to-grasp, this book breaks down directing to its most essential elements: the philosophy and the process. The book is a great starting guide for the newbie. Use it to learn just the fundamental principles of filmmaking, and then go out and discover your own principles.



3. I just finished a feature length screenplay that will soon become a feature length film. To prepare for production I decided to purchase two books: Creative Producing A to Z, and, A Film Director Prepares, both by Myrl Schreibman. Having just finished reading them both, I now know I could not have made two better choices. Buy them both, read them both, then read them both again! I promise, your film career will be well served.



4. The Film Director Prepares: A Complete Guide to Directing for Film and TV is a great text and resource for the beginner looking at the construct of filmmaking and the director's role as well as great advice and insight for those at intermediate and experienced levels. The added CD from Frame Forge is outstanding and invaluable for storyboarding your project. Overall an excelent resource!



5. This unique book is one of the best Film and Television Directing books that promises satisfaction and truth. Myrl A. Schreibman is an authentic and creative author that incorporates wisdom throughout the book rather than regurgitating his knowledge. Experience is another thing that this book offers which creates a pragmatic platform for the reader that ultimately functions as motivation and inspiration. This book is a powerful tool for any beginning, intermediate, and even advanced student or professional of Film and Television Directing.

No comments about Hedi Slimane: Rock Diary.

5 comments about Schaum's Outline of Optics.

1. This Schaum's outline is better than the expensive textbook by the same author on the same subject in many ways, and in my opinion stands alone as a guide on optics. It gets to the meat of optics via solving problems that range from simple to difficult, which is particularly attractive to engineers learning or reviewing this subject. To me, the only chapters that seemed a bit confusing were the first two on wave motion and on electromagnetic waves and photons. For that material you may need to consult another source. From that point onward, however, the outline couldn't be any better. The outline even has a chapter that introduces Fourier optics. This outline would make an excellent review or supplement for someone taking a course in Photonics that uses Saleh's "Fundamentals of Photonics". That textbook has virtually no solved problems in it whatsoever, and the first third of the book follows the material covered in this outline nicely.



2. Its a good book to work problems in congunction with a regular text book. The practical side is limited for engineering purposes. Smith or Fischer is a better book.
   
   I am a practicing engineer, so I look at stuff from what works in real world. It would have been a very good book when I was in grad school (many moons ago:).



3. I used this book as a supplement for a course in Physical Optics, mainly to get practice in solving problems. I found the chapters on Polarization and Diffraction very useful. This book helped me get a better grade in this course. This book does not cover the topics like Jones and Coherence Matrix and Stokes vector. However these topics are covered well in the same author's Optics text. BTW, The Optics text is also very good. Solving problems in this book and then approaching the text gives a much better understanding of Optics. This book does not cover Poincare' sphere, which is also an important topic for which we cant find material anywhere except our Professor's lecture notes. Overall, this book is a must if you are taking any Optics course or the GRE physics text or if you just want to master the basics of Optics.



4. This is a great book for somebody who wants to learn basics and get a feeling about optics. Helped me with the exam too.



5. This schaum's outline is too old for this topic (same thing for Optics by Eugene Hecht ISBN: 0805385665). It is time for someone to write a new one even if physics has not changed! (I guess what you pay is what you get!)
   
   Pro: good summary for something you know
   con: not much detail like many old books from schaum's

5 comments about The Complete Guide to Light & Lighting in Digital Photography (A Lark Photography Book).

1. My copy has the same ISBN number as listed above, but has a different cover and is listed "First Edition" 2007. I'm assuming that the book ordered here is virtually identical.
   
   I found the content quite excellent. It explains light color well, bit depth and dynamic range well. It gets a tad bit repetitious comparing different lighting sources, although does point out important differences. The book does well to bridge the gap between Photoshop tuitorial and visual results; it will not tell you how to use Photoshop, but has many Photoshop screen captures discussing the effect of adjustments. There is a good section on High Dynamic Range (HDR) imaging.
   
   The book does have an undue amount of typos. If you can look past them then you can enjoy this book. In some cases the typos are extreme: there are four consecutive pages that show different lighting positions on a still life object; 80 images in all. However, the caption key for each picture describing the setup is exactly the same for each image! Somebody forgot to change the captions, so those pages are completely useless. I did email the author about this and received a nice reply and copy from the editor; they promised an update on their website. Time has come and gone, and the update page is still empty - I imagine they are either off slapping together a new book to sell to you, or maybe someone actually did shoot the editor...



2. I am very pleased with this item. It came in great time and was in perfect condition.



3. This is a great book, with lots of good ideas for how to set up lighting in differing situations. I've already improved my lighting using ideas from this book. What made this a tough slog is that the illustrations sometimes don't match up, and for a photography book, the illustrations tend to be kind of important.
   
   I went on the publisher web site, and haven't found an errata, but will keep looking in the hopes, since cleaning up the figures (and adding the missing ones obviously referred to) would make this a great overall book.



4. I agree strongly with the first review of this book. I bought this one and a wedding photo book. Reading this one has been a much better use of my time! It takes a more scientific and pragmatic approach to successful photography. Light is what you are capturing and the essence of photography. One should really know something about it :) I really like the series shots towards the back of the book that include a bust, a ball and a figurine with different light treatments (reflectors, angles, blah blah blah). He also does series shots of the same objects only with different exposures, different times of day and different lighting setting, which helps you get a better understanding of white balance and how to use it to your advantage. It shows progressive evening to night shots. I do wish it had more night shooting tips, but it was well worth the $30. He uses a Nikon D2X, I believe, which might make the Nikon users feel a bit more comfortable, but really this info applies to all digital SLRs out there. He also touches on photoshop and photomatrix.



5. Michael Freeman seems to be a passionate traveler and artist before being a talented professional photographer.
   With " Light and Lighting", he shares with us his experience, taking us on a captivating journey from the nature of light through the technical intricacies and complexities that the serious and dedicated photographer is bound to encounter (staying clear, from the pitfalls of pedantry and tediousness) to lead us beyond the limitations of technology into the wide open space of our own limitless creativity and freedom of expression.
   If you have been inspired by this book, I would also recommend its companions, "Mastering Color Digital Photography" and "Mastering Black and White Digital Photography". They are of the same caliber.