The Kodak Library of Creative Photography. Mastering Composition and Light

Time-Life Books, 1984. — 112 p. — (The Kodak Library of Creative Photography).The Kodak Library of Creative Photography series is aimed at beginner photographers and consists of 18 volumes: Mastering Color, Dealing with Difficult Situations, Taking Better Travel Photos, Learning from the Experts, creating Special Effects, Magic of Black and White Photogrpahs, Building and Cityscapes, Mastering Composition and Light, Take Better Pictures, Art of Portraits and the Nude, Print Your Own Pictures, Set Up Your Home Studio, Extend Your Range, Photographing the Drama of Daily Life, Capture the Beauty in Nature, Make Color Work for You, and Photographing Friends and Family.Responding to pictures is largely a matter of personal taste. The elements of a photograph somehow combine and strike a chord for one person, while for another the image may mean little. Yet some pictures, have a quality that everyone can recognize and appreciate.Apart from a subject's inherent interest, two things are fundamentally important in a picture: composition and light. The photographer of the picture opposite used a pattern of strong sunlight and deep shadows as t he basis for a composition that has atmosphere and also looks just right visually. One of the picture's many virtues is its sense of depth - carrying the eye inward, as if througha sunlit window . But depth or perspective is only one of the important elements of composition. The pictures on the following nine pages exemplify others - balance and asymmetry, shape and form, pattern and texture . The book shows you how you can turn these seemingly abstract terms into practical ways of improving your pictures. They are at the core of creative photography. And by first following some basic rules in a systematic way, you can learn to recognize and use these pictorial elements instinctively. Light itself is fundamental to all the elements, and thus has a section of its own within this book. In a sense, light makes photographs; photographers only take them.