The Art of Photography: An Approach to Personal Expression Book

I don't really know where to start this review. Bruce Barnbaum's The Art of Photography is a book about art, design, self-expression, and creativity. It's also about photography, from the technical aspects (both film and digital) to a discussion about photography myths. Overall, I learned much and found this book wonderful! Must-read if you are starting to dabble in creative processes and/or are interested in photography. (For the former aspect, I will recommend it to all Ph.D. students under my guidance.)

In eighteen chapters, the book covers much ground. It first discusses photography as communication (Chapter 1); followed by the elements of composition (increasingly technical, from the general discussion about composition in Chapter 2, to the presentation of light and color in Chapters 5 and 6, respectively). Then, the book explains the core of photographic technique, with filters and the zone system (exposure) explained carefully in Chapters 7 through 9; Chapter 9, on the extended zone system, explains how to work in a high dynamic range with visible results and dispels the myth of only 10 zones being available to the film photographer. Chapter 10 presents the printing process; it's rather technical. Chapter 11 introduces digital photography as a complement to its film counterpart. Chapter 12 closes the circle of technical aspects of photography---after visualization, exposure, development, and printing---, with presentation (dry mounting and correcting mistakes in the mounted picture). After a summary of the most common faults of thinking about photography (Chapter 13), Chapters 14 through 18 present a debate about artistic integrity, meaning and limitations of photography as an art, and creativity and personal philosophy.

I enjoyed very much the analysis of many things creative and technical regarding (film) photography. Having started from digital, I can finally understand some of the things that differentiate the two approaches, and also some of the unifying themes (like the zone system vs channel histograms).

The discussion about art was, for me, exquisite. The formulation of a vision for each photograph is a concept that is novel for me, but following various fields of artistic interest and merging visualization with perfect execution are ideas that resonate with me. The explanations and discussions about these matters were cogent and delightful, even when I did not agree with the tone or even the argument.

I was very impressed with the discussion about the professional limit imposed on creativity by obtuse editors, curators, and reviewers. Simply, these categories of professionals may severely limit the art (and published expression) of artists to "what sells" or to what each artist has come to be known for. To alleviate this problem, Bruce suggests a broadening of the portfolio, either from the start, or whenever allowed by the publisher's wishes; this approach could match the natural expressive and technical development of the artist.

I found the part on creativity refreshing, if a bit trivial. It's perseverance and a few related traits that, in the view of Bruce Barnbaum, enable creativity. No recipe (that's normal), but luck and hard work and knowing what one wants (this also contradicts with Chapter 17's take on intuition).

There is a wealth of relevant references, especially in what concerns great photographers---I picked the names of Ansel Adams, Diane Arbus, Eugene Atget, Bill Brandt, Alvarez Bravo, Henri Cartier-Bresson, Imogen Cunningham, Walker Evans, Ernst Haas, Yousuf Karsh, Andre Kertesz, Josef Koudelka, Mary Ellen Mark, Sebastiano Salgado, Joseph Sudek, Alfred Stieglitz, Paul Strand, Brett Weston, Edward Weston, and Minor White.

There are very few things I did not like in this book. Perhaps, at least in the beginning, the tone---Bruce talks disparagingly of beginners, people adhering to rules of composition, technically adept people, pretty much everyone who does not take what Bruce considers to be a pure approach; yet, in Chapter 17, Bruce becomes human and admits than lack of control over the visualization of the image can be useful. Another slightly negative aspect was the treatment of digital photography, rather limited and in general considered less good; again, the view expressed in this book varies, depending on the subject to photograph, so perhaps digital is not so bad. Last, but not least, the conviction of the author that great photography is always the result of respectful, caring, and in general feelings about the subject of the photograph was unsubstantiated; simplistically, I believe a good, artsy photography could be produced not only by luck by an amateur, especially with the great advances of technology.