Harold Davis (1)Ressenyes

I don't know what to rate this book...in someways I liked it. I am glad it had Lightroom/Photoshop tips. So many books do not. However, it didn't have a lot specific technical advice. On top of that (and this is just my opinion), the photos weren't that great. I just didn't feel inspired. Also, women photos were really poor. It isn't what they were wearing but just the fact the the photos themselves are so contrived, nothing appealing or artistic about them. I know others with disagree with me but...just my opinion.

For some reason, GoodReads does not list the second edition of the book, and this is the one that I am reviewing.

The second edition is much-expanded and is good - overall. I like the additional sections on solarization, the pinhole effects etc.

However, I will also say that, when it comes to the sections on image processing, the book is a bit patchy, as the explanations are a bit difficult to follow. However, there are some special effects that I want to experiment with, and for this alone, the book is well worth the price

The sections on black and white vision are excellent.

Very misleading. I thought this would be more about the technique not how to edit.

A deep resource with many ideas and explanations. Inspirational photography with details on how each was created.

Como especifica el título, es un libro básicamente de tips sobre fotografía de retrato. Aunque las fotos que usa como ejemplo no son de mis preferidas, son útiles en cuanto a datos EXIF y esquemas de iluminación.

El libro no está mal, explica cosas que a estas alturas me resultan obvias, pero que siempre viene bien recordar. Se lee bien (hay muchos ejemplos), y aunque trata de retratos en general, parece que tiene especial predilección en retrato de niños (el libro está lleno de fotos de sus retoños :P).

También hay un apartado sobre retoques básicos en PS (el de Multi-RAW processing me parece muy interesante), unos pocos esquemas de iluminación en estudio, y unas cuantas referencias bibliográficas y de software a tener en cuenta.

Beautiful photos of the Golden Gate Bridge!

"Cameras don't take photos, people do" is the premise for this handy guide to digital photography. It sets out to be a practical guide that shows that you don't need expensive photographic equipment to take good photographs.

Various aspects of the camera and photography, both practical and creative, are explained briefly and concisely without getting technical. Lenses and Focal lengths; Using a Fisheye Lens; Working with Macro Lenses; Understanding Exposure; ISO and Noise; Mulit-Raw Processing Beyond Landscapes; Shutter Speed and Motion; Exposing for the Earth and the Sky at Night; Seeing the unexpected; Photography That Tells a Story; Abstraction; Combining Images; Surrealism; Patterns; Framing; Black and White; Perspective, are just a few around 75 different topics covered.

Each topic opens with a brief introduction followed by examples. It is illustrated throughout with the authors own colour photographs on virtually everyone of its 240 pages, and each photograph is accompanied by a brief explanation of what the photographer set out to do and how he achieved it, including the equipment and settings used, all this information is extremely useful. Sometimes comparative examples or steps are illustrated. The scope of the guide is vast, as is the variety of the pictures, so most should find something that appeals here.

The presentation is good, although I would have favoured a serif typeface for the text rather than the sans face chosen here, it does not make for ease of reading. Included is a Further Reading list, Glossary and Index.

Creative Composition is a useful book; but it is perhaps best taken in small doses, the danger, with with so much information covered in very short sections, one is tempted to cover too much in one go. What it does not do is discuss to any extent the use of photo-editing software, reference is made to Adobe Photoshop (it does not mention other software such as Corel Photo-Paint), but there is little here that explains how to use the software, nor does it explore many of the the creative possibilities of such software.

Google Advertising Tools: Cashing in with AdSense and Adwords, 2ed. is one of those books where you take lots of notes. I have been involved with AdWords and AdSense, on a surface level, for a couple of years. So I knew my way around these services. I would say that a third of this book is devoted to screen shots and help with navigation. Which is good, but wasn’t helpful to me. If you are newer to these services then you will love these sections as they are very well pulled together. This also means that a full two-thirds of the book was helpful to me.

The author does talk about staying reader-focused and the need for consistently creative and unique content, but most of the ink is spent on the reason/need for sitemaps, tips for good page layouts, techniques, etc. He does a good job explaining the ‘how’ and the ‘why’ all of these things.

I really like the layout of the book which is in three sections:

Making money with a website
Cashing in with Adsense
Working with Adwords

These allow the author to really setup strategies apart from the tools to execute the strategies. In the first section he even talks about non-Google related “affiliate programs” and some Adsense-competitor networks. All in an effort to show you that Google is not the only way. Which I appreciated. It allows for honest context and back of the napkin type metrics. This is something that a lot of these types of books are lacking. It is these real world tips, based on actual data, that can help you build your site and network. I am talking about tips such as:

A daily blog post should have 250-300 words. On average, this gives an optimal mix of human-friendly words and keyword saturation (search engine-friendly words).
If your post/page is over 300 words or if your readers are spending more than a minute on that post/page, then you might want to consider breaking it up which could help with readability and add another chance to display revenue-generating elements.
A good Click-Through-Rate for ads is 1.5% or better. The author recommends troubleshooting anything lower. He also offers tips on how to troubleshoot and tweak page layouts.

I would recommend this book to anyone who needs a solid introduction to the “how” part of monetizing a website. Advanced folks should look elsewhere. If you’re a developer, you’ll be disappointed in the lack of code. In all honesty, if you follow the right blogs and do a few key Google searches you could probably dig a lot of this up on your own. But it’s nice that I didn’t have to spend my weekend digging and learning. I could just spend it learning. I give this book a solid 3 out of 5 stars and have already recommended to two people.

Out from an Ansel Adams photography exhibit, I found this book which makes Mr. Davis' Landscapes art photographies and that of other Landscape artists comprehensible both from a philosophical and from a technical perspective.
Connection with the Tao and imperfections, impermanence of nature are key spiritual aesthetics for Mr. Davis.
The great photographs taken in the mesas of California or the rocky formations of Nevada take the reader on the "experiential" roads travelled more for their long arduous adventures than for their destination. In quoting C.P. Cavafy over Odysseus, Davis demystifies his techniques and his efforts capturing the fleeting and evocative lights of his many sceneries.

This book is wonderful, even if you don't want to photograph flowers, you will love it! The color photos are extraordinary. Even if you just enjoy the fragility of flowers, admire the individuality of home grown ones, or am amazed at their perfection.

The entire book is a treasure. I am getting to the review later than I planned in doing because I could not refrain from studying the gorgeous colors, shapes and sometimes rhythm of the flowers photo.

It so easy to tell that Harold Davis is passionate about photographing flowers Besides the pictures that you would like to study for hours, he tells you everything that you need to learn about photographing flowers. He gives clear and valuable advice on what kind of lens to use, depending on what your purpose is. With knowing that, planning out the photo and picking lighting that enhances the picture, filters to show what you want to concentrate on and the amount of exposure, you can confidently try out photographing flowers. He even shows how he sets up his light box set and recommends the best material for backgrounds for indoor shots.

You would think that a book written by a master artist of a photographer would tend to intimidate you but instead it encourages you! He adds little bits about the history of the different flowers in the book and entertains you with his personal experiences. With this book, I understand how to do the things that I want to try; I appreciate the history of flowers even more and have more information about what to look for when buying photographic equipment.

I doubt that anyone could have written a better book. I recommend it to people even if they just enjoy looking at flowers, much less than photographing them.

I received this book as a part of the Amazon Vine program but that in no way influence my thoughts or feelings in this review.

I'm a pretty keen amateur photographer and I'm always on the lookout for great photos and descriptions of how those shots were acheived. I hope that by studying and thinking about great shots, I can improve my own style and become more original and creative. Therefore I was really looking forward to receiving this book as part of the Amazon Vine programme.

This book breaks down into 2 parts - the first part deals with the basics of modern photography such as aperture, focus and ISO, while the second part deals more with composition. The book features many photos taken by the author, but the print quality of the book removed the impact from a lot of the photos. Print quality aside, I found myself looking at many of the shots and feeling uninspired - I simply didn't consider some of them to be good photos. However, that's a matter of subjectivity, so let's leave that aside for now.

I'm also unsure as to the proposed audience for this book - it's published by John Wiley & Sons, a famous textbook publisher, but it's not detailed enough to be a textbook for the serious photographer. On the other hand, the material is a little too advanced to be suitable for the beginning photographer.

There's no doubt that the author, Harold Davis, is an enthusiastic photographer, that much is evident from the text. However, I really think that this book could have benefited from a bit more focus (no pun intended) when in the development stage.

The art of macro photography-photographing small objects or super close-ups of small sections of big objects-yields fascinating results, but shooting at this level brings its own set of challenges. Now you can shoot close-ups with confidence and creative flair with this information-packed guide.

Renowned photographer Harold Davis provides pages of field-tested techniques on focus, depth-of-field, exposure-even the appropriate equipment to use for this unique niche of digital photography. The book includes stunning and intriguing examples of his work to illustrate concepts.

Google Advertising Tools from O'Reilly examines the business and technology behind making money with content and advertising on the web. This focused, easy-to-read guide shows you how to use Google's advertising services to make it happen. You'll find all the background information you need to work with Google AdSense, which automatically delivers text and image ads that are precisely targeted to your site, and Google AdWords, which lets you generate text ads that accompany specific search term results.

This book has specific and detailed sections on:

Turning your web site into a profit center with AdSense
Making sense of AdSense metrics
Driving traffic to your site
Optimizing sites for search engine placement
Working with AdWords campaigns, auctions, and reports
Managing campaigns dynamically using the AdWords APIs

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