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Beyond Basic Photography

Customer Rating:
I really like Henry Hoernstein's book, Beyond Basic Photography: A Technical Manual. I use it as a text book for my Photo II class. It brings 2nd semester students to the next level, "Old School" style. Easy to read and to the point.

very helpful.

Customer Rating:
For those of us who want to go on in photography and learn in depth techniques, I think this book is pretty good. I have Horensteins book Basic Photography. I appreciated all the indepth coverage of the elements of basic photography. Beyond Basic Photography continues with more detailed coverage. I don't like the illustrations this time around, they seem more cartoony--but the content is very detaile.

The book is very specific about teaching you how to get good negatives, which will in turn, help you make better prints. That's always a good thing.

May be useful for those married to the darkroom

Customer Rating:
"Beyond Basic Photography" is indeed a technical manual, in the sense that it focuses on things you can do in the darkroom and in lighting setup. It does feel outdated for those of us who have left the bad-for-health-and-environment chemical world and adopted the digital revolution. There's also nothing about how to take pictures; the emphasis is how to light and how to process the film.

Not very Technical or Up to Date

Customer Rating:
This book is really surprisingly still in print. It's from the 70's and it looks like it. Some useful information can be gleaned from it to be overgenerous. I find it rather amusing in fact. The photos inside are absolutely ridiculous. They are clearly examples of "just let me take your picture for this ass of a book I'm writing..." -- the fat couple in lawn chairs is pretty funny (pg. 21). The discussion of the zone system is laughably short and comprises only 5 pages. Most of the discussion centers around mixing various chemicals in various ratios. I wonder if all of these are still available on the market. The drawings in the text are third grade level, and someone actually gets credit on the cover! This is a very poorly done text and I don't recommend it with so many other books out there on this subject matter.

Great read

Customer Rating:
As a student of Henry's at the Rhode Island School of Design I read the book BEFORE I attended RISD I was captivated by the simple ways he explained the "sometimes" complexity of photography.

Such as Henry's way - making life easy and fun for everyone.

I suggest checking out his other books too.