Research: Books

"If your pictures aren't good enough, you aren't reading enough"
 -Todd Papageorge, Yale professor and photographer


In this module we've been asked to create a piece of work that is relevant by relating our work to a key debate in contemporary photography. To help me with this I decided to take out some books from the library, some were recommended by our tutor and others were books which I thought would be useful for this project.

The Filmmaker's Eye - Gustavo Mercado
This is a very useful book which goes into great detail on how to compose shots for film and video. It contains the different types of shots you see in films and offers advice on when to use these shots.

Basic Critical Theory for Photographer - Ashley la Grange
This book goes over key debates in photography and covers numerous critical theory texts such as Sontags' On Photography and Barthes' Camera Lucida.

Film Art: an introduction - Bordwell / Thompson
Film Art is an introduction to film studies, covering everything from film art and style to the history of film. I found the film style chapter to be very usefull as it discussed things like cinematography, editing and sound.

Art Photography Now - Susan Bright
This is a book which I already own but decided to look through as a starting point for this project. It looks at many contemporary photographers in differnt genres of photography.

Photography - Bull

"Being a photographer is not just about taking a picture, but knowing why you are taking it"
- Diane Dufour, Bureau Chief, Magnum