Book Review: The Life of a Photograph

Sometimes, when my life seems hectic, I check books out of the library that I call "picture books."

No, in this case I don't mean books for preschoolers where the pictures tell the stories and words echo the pictures. I love those types of books and own more than my fair share of them, but those aren't the books I'm talking about right now.

What I'm talking about are picture books for adults. Books that I can browse through without a lot of concentrated effort. There may be plenty of words, but those are secondary to my purpose. I'm looking for eye candy. Books with pictures that jog my imagination, inspire me, give me ideas, present a subject or a perspective I hadn't considered in a while. If the pictures catch my interest, I can dig deeper and read the words that go with them.

Usually, on one of these excursions, I wander over to the New Books shelf. I start by skimming the titles of BIG BOOKS. Often the larger the size of the book, the more chance there is that it has lots of color photographs.

So sometimes my picture book might be a cookbook. Occasionally, a biography. Often it will be needlework, crafts, home care, decorating, color theory, fashion or art. This month I picked up a book of photography:

The Life of a Photograph
by Sam Abell

This book has very few words, but many, many photographs. There are lots of photographs that look very similar to one another, with just a few elements that vary from image to image.

That's what I learned from this book. Sam often doesn't go out seeking pictures, he lets the picture come to him. He seems like a very patient man!

His take on photographs? Composition is key. Look for the setting. Frame it up. Then wait. People, animals, wind ... something will happen within that setting. Watch for it, then capture the moment. "... gesture, light, color and space mingle and occasionally merge."

More advice? "look for strong diagonals; take a low angle; keep the sun to your side; bad weather makes good pictures ... compose and wait."

That's a unique perspective. The objects within the setting are not the subject of the image. The setting is the subject ... the objects that interject themselves into the subject are what causes the subject to show itself off.

Do I recommend Sam's book. Uh ... maybe. There was nothing in it that blew me away. It does present a very unique perspective, and that makes it worth browsing.

More, I recommend a quick trip to the library, to the New Book shelf, and see what kind of picture book you can find. It won't take much time or energy. But it may open you up to new ideas.