Photography Books

Through many of the connections we've made on the web, we've come across a number of books and magazines for photographers that are consistently recommended. We'd like to pass this list on in case any of these books might be interesting to you -- or as gifts to the photographer that you know.

In addition to our list, we also offer several other book guides from various magazines.

Wildlife, Nature, and Landscape Photography

I love these books. Not only do they provide an education on how to approach wildlife and nature photography. But, they also provide a library of some of the more fascinating and technically difficult photographs that these artists have chosen to illustrate their books. It's not often that one can take a class from the likes of John Shaw or Art Wolfe or Arthur Morris or other top-notch photographers so their books provide at least one way to learn from them.

General Photography Guides

Wildlife and nature photography technique is dominated by deep consideration of focal length, exposure times, dynamic range and other technical considerations in addition to the basic tradeoffs. These books get you into a deeper discussion of photography skills that focus on composition as well as more general topics.

Digital Processing

I've gone fully digital now; the key benefits to me are instant feedback on the picture that I've just taken as well as a virtually unlimited capacity -- I can take hundreds of pictures and get instant feedback on the photographic merits (via a histogram feature on my camera) as well as the focus and layout. As a result, I have the opportunity to experiment with pictures rather than buying film for every exposure. Going digital has meant learning a new workflow in order to get the most out of my pictures. These books offer a great start.

Coffee Table Books:

Sometimes, nothing is so good as the chance to sit back and look at some of the best photos around. The following coffee table books can be left on the table but offer the author's best work.