Creative Composition: Digital Photography Tips and Techniques

really helped me start to think about what I shoot

I like it and I would recommend this to others ! Good Job ! Just what they described in the ad!

All of Harold Davis's books are well written,a good learning curve and packed with useful information..a must have.

Creative Composition by Harold Davis is a purchase well worth it. The advice & photography inspire and show new ways to look at people, flowers, architecture, water, landscapes,& the night sky. I always learn from reading but mostly looking at great photography! Check it out.

Harold Davis is not only a great photographer, but a very good teacher as well. I very much enjoy reading and doing the exercises in his books.

Very easy to comprehend and apply

What makes this a 4 star rating instead of a 3 are the photographs Davis includes as examples. The text itself, however, is very basic and there isn't much in-depth instruction. The photos save it.

I have purchased a # of photography books from Amazon but this was by far the most disappointing.Did not come away with much as the contents were repetitive right through.Also purchased:Creative Close-Ups: Digital Photography Tips and Techniques - By Harold DavisCreative Night: Digital Photography Tips & Techniques - By Harold DavisI was hoping that I would have some nice reference materials but was grossly disappointed.I am not a professional but just an enthusiast and normally do not post reviews good or bad, but just felt I had to for these three books.Also I am not one for returning stuff...so I guess I am stuck with them.

I'm studying for a course in photography and I wanted tips on composition skills, the book started of ok explaining the usual rule of thirds and the like. As I read on further it became much the same as any other reading, going on about post processing and stacking images, adding one image to another or three or four together in post software. this is not photography to me, but computer generated images and can look quite bizarre. if this is what you are into then give it a go, but for me I strive for straight out of camera. Ok you can double expose in camera and I have had some results but that is still "in camera" without post process skills. I will carry on and finish the book but I get bored with the whole post processing trend these days. It's probably only me and we all have different ideas how a final image should look which is why it's called art, but these kind images are not for me.

Nice book to give as a present to creative people.I offered this to my friend who is a photographer and he loved it.

This book outlines some basic compositional devices, such as using frames within frames, blurring of backgrounds, photographing reflections rather than the original subject, and using humour or whimsy to capture images where one thing suggests another.For example, we see a child's blue eye peering through a hole in a slice of bread, a baby in an incubator appearing to be suspended in outer space, classical buildings reflected in the panes of a modern glass sky-scraper, and huge cranes on the dockside contorted to look like galloping horses. There are also enough serene landscapes (the Grand Canyon, wooded hillsides in winter, dramatic sunsets) to satisfy traditionalists!Though the emphasis of the book is very much on composition, there inevitably has to be a certain amount of technical detail on focal length, exposure and lens type to enable you to capture the images in your minds eye. So from that point of view, the book probably doesn't suit a complete beginner, nor someone whose camera has no manual functionality (i.e a basic point and shoot).That said the author does a good job of simplifying most of the technical stuff, and the format of the book (largeish print, lots of images) makes it an easy and enjoyable read. I much preferred this to many of the other digital photography books I'd read, such as Tom Ang's offerings which seem to put a lot of emphasis on image editing and manipulation. This book does have some post-production information, but I feel the balance is about right.

I have taken photographs since early childhood, guided by my father who is a keen amateur photographer. My photographic style developed using film but I have taken photographs digitally for around six years. I own a lot of books on photography but many have gone largely unread as they are weighty tomes that do not invite a casual glance.Creative Compositions is the first photography book that I have ever read in its entirety, which says something about the presentation in itself. I did not find myself submerged by text and technical information and the photographic illustrations drew me in to read how the effects had been achieved.The technical information is on the sparse side but sufficient for purpose and avoids the balance of the book being weighted too much towards the theory. This is as much a book to inspire as to explain but it achieves the latter effectively. I often find myself absorbed by photographs without grasping why they have impact or how this is achieved. Harold Davis' book offers not only inspiration but also the why and the how behind compositions that resonate.This is a very accessible pictorial reference book, richly illustrated throughout by the author's own photographs with information about how each was taken and subsequently manipulated to produce the final image. The balance of photographs to text is excellent and the book can be read cover to cover in a couple of hours to spark ideas and then referred back to for tips on execution.I have a reasonable grasp of the basics and perhaps beyond and am already on the lookout for shots that rise above the ordinary. Creative Compositions took me a step further with useful tips on composition and image manipulation, ideas for future projects but more importantly a sense of why certain elements come together to turn the mundane into something outstanding.

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.