You may be passionate about photography, and own a digital SLR with perhaps more advanced equipment as well. But do the photographs you take with this powerful equipment come out as well as you'd like? With this fascinating and beautifully illustrated book, you learn how to apply the techniques and principles of classic photography so you can make great images with today's digital equipment. Harold Davis, author and renowned fine art photographer, puts the focus in Practical Artistry on light and exposure, two crucial concepts you need to understand and master if you are to truly capture the images you see. Davis presents a generous number of his own images in each chapter, complete with technical information and an explanation of what he was trying to achieve. These striking photographs not only illustrate the lesson at hand, but also serve as inspiration for your own efforts. Browsing the photographs alone will tell you a lot. Topics covered in this book include:

• Camera, lenses, and equipment

• Understanding exposure and measuring light

• Relationship of aperture to shutter speed and ISO

• Working with depth of field

• Natural lighting, studio lighting, and the use of flash

• Light and color temperature

• Working with white balance

• Photographing at dawn or dusk

• Photography at night

• Capturing motion

• Telling a story with your image

• Capturing people, places, and things

• Setting up a digital workflow

• RAW processing and double RAW processing

• Adjusting exposure and reducing noise

• Black & white photography

• And much more

Concise and to the point, Practical Artistry clearly demonstrates that photography, essentially, is writing with light, and that the type of images you produce depend on the many choices you have for using that skill. Harold Davis gives you an array of choices in full living color.

Amazon.com® Reader Reviews (Ranked by Helpfulness)

Average Amazon.com® Rating:  Based on 16 Ratings

Light & Exposure for Digital Photographers by Harold Davis - 2009-07-09
Reviewer Rating:
Practical Artistry: Light & Exposure for Digital Photographers
by Harold Davis Published by O'Reilly 2008

A Review by Barbara Hansen, Golden Gate Computer Society

Digital photography is sometimes described as painting with light. This beautifully illustrated book explains how to use a digital camera to do just that.

The first few chapters go in a detail explanation of the importance of correct exposure. The relationship of aperture, shutter speed, ISO (light sensitivity) and white balance are all discussed in great detail to explain exposure.

Harold says that: " The most fun in digital photography begins after you take the photo," but that is no excuse for taking badly exposed pictures.

Each chapter is illustrated with photographs taken by the author with all the meta data recorded and personal comments on what he was trying to do and how. It is fun just to flip thru this book viewing the beautiful shots and reading just how they were done. Since the author lives in Berkeley, most of the photographs were taken in the Bay Area and particularly in Marin, which is instructive for local photographers.

The last chapter of the book is called the Digital Darkroom and it really gets down to the nitty gritty of editing photographs in Raw. It has one of the best explanations of combining different layers of a photo using masks and blending modes. And his definition of the blending
modes such as: Color, Luminosity, Multiply, Screen and Soft light make more sense to me than anything else I have read. His discussion of Cross Processing and transforming color photos to Black and White have me eager to try out some of his techniques.

This is a beautiful book with lots of technical goodies for the avid photographer and I would recommend it for your library. Harold Davis also writes a popular Photoblog 2.0 at [..] as well as other books on photography.

5 Stars

Excellent Book to Understand Exposure - 2008-10-22
Reviewer Rating:
I am new to photogrpahy and ended up buying so many books. But this one is really amazing, the way author has explained the exposure and its three components is very helpful.No other photographer is so comfortable/open to discuss in detail how they took those pictures. I also read his blog and the way author describes how to take pictures with creative exposure and enhance those pictures in Photoshop is also examplary... no one else tells the whole story.Though I am a starter, I am sure even the pros would find those things very helpful.
His knowledge of nature and science is also wonderful and he relates it to photography really well.
I wish i had bought this book earlier, and also that those camera companies contact him to write their extended user manuals.

A perfect choice for any library catering to pro or neo-pro digital photographers - 2008-09-11
Reviewer Rating:
Modern digital cameras offer lots of sophistication but if you want to produce memorable results, you can't rely on automated exposures alone. Photographer Harold Davis here provides exposure principles to take great photos, supplementing his tips with eye-catching examples created from his own techniques. The photos offer lessons on applied techniques and this is a perfect choice for any library catering to pro or neo-pro digital photographers.

Diane C. Donovan
California Bookwatch

Practical Artistry: Light and Exposure for Digital Photographers - 2009-10-15
Reviewer Rating:
A great book, especially for the beginner. It gives a good set of examples of situations and solutions. It is a lot of help and well written.

Very technical - 2008-10-08
Reviewer Rating:
This is a beautifully printed book, but I found it way too technical for me. Much too much information on the subject that I didn't relate to. Plus, I was not attracted to the photograph examples at all. I don't particularly enjoy abstract art and the very arty look that leaves out the realism that I do enjoy. So, I did not find this book very helpful and would definitely not have purchased it if I had held it in my hands in the store and looked through it.

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