Photographic Possibilities

Photographic Possibilities, Second Edition continues to provide a reliable source of techniques and ideas for the use of alternative and contemporary photographic processes that photographers have come to depend on. Professional photographers and advanced students seeking to increase their skills will discover modern and classic methods of creating and manipulating images. This practical guide integrates technical methods with the aesthetic outcome. It offers readers clear, step-by-step instructions on historic and on contemporary processes that integrate both the technical information and the aesthetic inspiration needed to create outstanding photographs. This new expanded edition concisely covers the most significant new products, processes, and issues that have effected the practice during the past decade. Two new chapters are exclusively devoted to digital photography, covering the history of digital imaging as well as the latest techniques and practices. Also included is an in-depth discussion on the copyright, which deals with the ethical and conceptual issues surrounding digital imaging that are rapidly changing the world of photography.

A reliable source of techniques and ideas for the use of alternative and contemporary photographic processes that photographers have come to depend on. Professional photographers and advanced students seeking to increase their skills will discover modern and classic methods of creating and manipulating images.

The long-awaited new edition of this seminal text features clear, reliable, step-by-step instructions on innovative alternative and traditional photographic processes. Over and above a full update and revision of the technical data, there are new sections on digital negative making, electrophotography, and self-publishing. Foremost practioners, including Edward Bateman, Dan Burkholder, Tom Carpenter, Mark Osterman, France Scully Osterman, Jill Skupin Burkholder, Brian Taylor, and Laurie Tümer, have contributed their expertise to this edition. Perfect for practitioners or students of handmade photography, the book covers classic black-and-white film and paper processes, hand-coated processes like Cyanotype, and Platinum/Palladium. Also featured is an enhanced section on gum bichromate, invaluable instruction on workflow, and the integration of digital, promoting the effective union of one’s concepts, materials, and processes. The book showcases work and commentary from more than 150 international artists.

Light & Lens: Photography in the Digital Age is a groundbreaking introductory book that clearly and concisely provides the instruction and building blocks necessary to create thought-provoking digitally based photographs. It is an adventurous idea book that features numerous classroom-tested assignments and exercises from leading photographic educators to encourage you to critically explore and make images from the photographers' eye, an aesthetic point of view. Acquire a basic foundation for digital photography. Light and Lens covers the fundamental concepts of image-making; how to use today's digital technology to create compelling images; and how to output and preserve images in the digital world. Explore the history, theory and methods of digital image-making. Light and Lens translates the enduring aesthetics of art photography into the digital realm. You'll view, capture and think about images from a new perspective. Increase your ability to analyze, discuss and write about your own work and the images of others. Learn with exercises and assignments by leading digital educators. Innovative techniques will train your eye to make the strongest visual statement. Solve visual problems and overcome image challenges. Whether you use a digital SLR or a point-and-shoot camera, you'll get new strategies to master composition, design and light. View the full range of the digital terrain with stunning images and commentary by over 190 international artists. Robert Hirsch is a renowned photographer, educator, historian and writer. His book credits include Photographic Possibilities: The Expressive Use of Ideas, Materials and Processes; Exploring Color Photography: From the Darkroom to the Digital Studio; and Seizing the Light: A History of Photography. He has had many one-person shows and curated numerous exhibitions. Hirsch has also conducted many workshops and interviewed eminent photographers of our time. The former executive director of CEPA Gallery, he is now the director of Light Research in Buffalo, New York, and on the Visual Studies faculty of University of Buffalo/The State University of New York.

Learn to ask better, more helpful questions of your work so that you can create stronger and more powerful photographs.

Photographers often look at an image—one they’ve either already created or are in the process of making—and ask themselves a simple question: “Is this a good photograph?” It’s an understandable question, but it’s really not very helpful. How are you supposed to answer that? What does “good” even mean? Is it the same for everyone?

What if you were equipped to ask better, more constructive questions of your work so that you could think more intentionally and creatively, and in doing so, bring more specific action and vision to the act of creating photographs? What if asking stronger questions allowed you to establish a more effective approach to your image-making? In The Heart of the Photograph: 100 Questions for Making Stronger, More Expressive Photographs, photographer and author David duChemin helps you learn to ask better questions of your work in order to craft more successful photographs—photographs that express and connect, photographs that are strong and, above all, photographs that are truly yours.

From the big-picture questions—What do I want this image to accomplish?—to the more detail-oriented questions that help you get there—What is the light doing? Where do the lines lead? What can I do about it?—David walks you through his thought process so that you can establish your own. Along the way, he discusses the building blocks from which compelling photographs are made, such as gesture, balance, scale, contrast, perspective, story, memory, symbolism, and much more. The Heart of the Photograph is not a theoretical book. It is a practical and useful book that equips you to think more intentionally as a photographer and empowers you to ask more helpful questions of you and your work, so that you can produce images that are not only better than “good,” but as powerful and authentic as you hope them to be.

TABLE OF CONTENTS
Better Questions

PART ONE: A GOOD PHOTOGRAPH?
Is It Good?
The Audience's Good
The Photographer's Good

PART TWO: BETTER THAN GOOD
Better Subjects

PART THREE: BETTER EXPRESSION
Exploration and Expression
What Is the Light Doing?
What Does Colour Contribute?
What Role Do the Lines and Shapes Play?
What's Your Point of View?
What Is the Quality of the Moment?
Where Is the Story?
Where Is the Contrast?
What About Balance and Tension?
What Is the Energy?
How Can I Use Space and Scale?
Can I Go Deeper?
What About the Frame?
Do the Elements Repeat?
Harmony
Can I Exclude More?
Where Does the Eye Go?
How Does It Feel?
Where's the Mystery?
Remember When?
Can I Use Symbols?
Am I Being Too Literal?

PART FOUR: BETTER PHOTOGRAPHS
The Heart of the Photograph
Index