[PDF] The Photographer's Mind ~ Creative thinking for better digital photos - Michael Freeman

[PDF] The Photographer's Mind ~ Creative thinking for better digital photos - Michael Freeman



The source of any photograph is not the camera or even the scene viewed through the viewfinder-it is the mind of the photographer: this is where an image is created before it is committed to a memory card or film. In The Photographer's Mind, the follow-up to the international best-seller, The Photographer's Eye, photographer and author Michael Freeman unravels the mystery behind the creation of a photograph.

The nature of photography demands that the viewer constantly be intrigued and surprised by new imagery and different interpretations, more so than in any other art form. The aim of this book is to answer what makes a photograph great, and to explore the ways that top photographers achieve this goal time and time again.

As you delve deeper into this subject, The Photographer's Mind will provide you with invaluable knowledge on avoiding cliché, the cyclical nature of fashion, style and mannerism, light, and even how to handle the unexpected.

Michael Freeman is the author of the global bestseller, The Photographer's Eye. Now published in sixteen languages, The Photographer's Eye continues to speak to photographers everywhere. Reaching 100,000 copies in print in the US alone, and 300,000+ worldwide, it shows how anyone can develop the ability to see and shoot great digital photographs.

Amazon Exclusive: A Letter from Michael Freeman on The Photographer's Mind

Dear Amazon Readers,

Well, I’ve written and photographed many books, and I was a little shocked when last month the 150th one appeared. A third of these are about photography, and you might think that’s rather too many for one person to write. I mean, don’t I have anything better to do? Valid question, but I like books--no, more than that, I have a strong belief in them--and as my work involves a lot of travelling, I have a great deal of time to think and write when I’m on the road. In fact, I’ve always spent a little more than half of each year travelling, and usually on long trips. Five or six weeks at a time is my ideal, though it’s sometimes longer by necessity. This isn’t packaged tourism, of course, and many of the places I’m in are a little quieter and more remote than you might expect. Perfect for thinking about writing, and this writing is also about what I’m doing--shooting.

Two and a half years ago I published The Photographer’s Eye, a book which at its core is about composition. This evolved from a much earlier book, long out of print. It always seemed to me that the word "technique" was usually being applied to the wrong things in photography. Technique was taken to mean twiddling knobs and working the controls, not to mention the arcana of imaging software. All very well, but what about the result? You could train yourself to fit a flash unit to the camera faster than a weapons expert could change magazines on a Kalashnikov, or learn to despise anyone who doesn’t use Smart Objects in Photoshop, but if the image is boring at the end of it, what was the point?

The techniques that always engaged me (and to be frank, most of the other professionals I know) have to do with image making, regardless of camera model or Photoshop version. My background is editorial assignment photography, usually features, so the pressure is always on to make the shot interesting. It’s quite often about storytelling, and if I’m trying to tell a part of that story clearly, I might (for instance) need to find a viewpoint and framing that relates one thing in the frame to another. Or, can I find a composition and scale that somehow encapsulates the mood and essence of the scene? Or, did another photographer I know already shoot this in a particular way, and how can I be different and better?

Composition isn’t about the Rule of Thirds (spare me, please!) and getting the framing perfect. There is no perfect. But neither is it vague and happy-feely. There are real techniques that involve knowing what the frame shape is doing to you, how the eye and mind tend to respond to visual stimuli, and how to create the right balance between surprise and comfort simply by the proportion you allocate to elements In the frame. And because these techniques involve choice of subject and being certain of what you’re trying to achieve (for instance, make the scene lush and lovable, or shock the pants off the audience), composition reaches much, much further than placing points and lines in a rectangle.

Well, if I go on much more, this will begin to be a book! And there already is one . . . it’s the sequel to The Photographer’s Eye, and it’s called The Photographer’s Mind. It exists because there was much more that I wanted to say than I was able to in Eye.

There’s even a little bit more that I couldn’t fit into this, either. One thing I touch on in the book is the deep effect of frame shape, and in particular a new trend towards wider. 16:9 is rapidly gaining ground as a "natural" format (aspect ratio, actually) because of HDTV, and a few cameras offer this framing. And of course, its shape alone has an effect on composing that is noticeably different from 3:2 and 4:3. Here are four examples, each illustrating a different effect:

REVIEWS

This is a really important book. Most photography books are solely concerned with cameras and lenses, but this book focuses (pun intended) on the psychology of the way images are interpreted and understood by people, which I think is far more important than equipment. The book is beautifully written and filled with gorgeous photographs illustrating the photographic and artistic concepts explained within. Photography has become bigger than ever before, and with the affordability of high-quality DSLRs and the image-sharing world of social media, everyone is a photographer today. In and of itself that is not a bad thing since Photography as a medium of documenting life as well as a medium for creative self-expression should be available to everyone. The problem, I feel, is that we've become too obsessed with technology, and we've forgotten that understanding the psychology and philosophy involved in all visual art is of paramount importance in creating images. Most books and YouTube videos are dedicated to catering to the consumer mentality. Everyone wants the newest, most expensive cameras with the most bells and whistles and highest megapixel counts, not realizing that you can take a great photograph with ANY camera, even point and shoot cameras and mobile phones. But the way to do that is to understand the elements of a good photograph and to think deeply about your compositions. That's where a book like this comes in. The author also wrote another book entitled The Photographer's Eye, which is equally a great book and also deals with the psychology of image making. Both books should be on the bookshelf of any serious photographer or artist.
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Michael Freeman is a genius of both photography and teaching. His books are works of art in their own right that can be savored over and over again for the pictures alone. However, if you can stop looking at the pictures long enough to read the books you can learn some amazing things. Michael is a prolific writer and I have many of his books but my three favorites are The Photographer's Eye: Composition and Design for Better Digital Photos,Michael Freeman's Perfect Exposure: The Professional's Guide to Capturing Perfect Digital Photographs, and this one. Each title perfectly captures what the books are about. If you want to learn more about composition then get the Photographer's Eye. Want to learn about Exposure, get Perfect Exposure. Want to learn more about composition and creative thinking, then get this book.

This book is for the beginner and expert alike. However, it does assume a level of competence with a camera. You don't have to be an expert, you just need to know how to make your camera do what you want. So if you are looking for a book that tells you what to do then look elsewhere. These books are about thinking and in particular, teaches you what to think about for advanced composition and creative thinking.

People often get too wrapped around the axel about gear. If only they had a faster camera or more megapixels or higher ISO, then they would be taking masterpieces. That could not be further from the truth. The cold hard truth is the best and fastest way to take better pictures is to one, take lots of pictures. A way to supercharge your learning in that process is to look at and study beautiful art and pictures. This book not only shows you amazing photos, it also analyzes the photos and explains why they are amazing photos and what he was thinking.

I recommend all 3 of these books as masterpieces you will treasure and will, with practice, accelerate your learning process for taking great pictures.

REFERENCE
https://www.amazon.com/Photographers-Mind-Michael-Freeman-ebook/dp/B00ABM3E9Q

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