Jay Maisel

This is the reflections of a successful photographer in his old age. But it's youthful in what it tries to communicate. It doesn't really stick to the sense of a book, which is what it felt like towards the beginning. It quickly settles into the author describing a scenario and showing a photograph, relating back which element from the title was primary in the photograph. It's a motivating book; my takeaway for my own photography is to always take a camera with me, and focus on the things in the title. And maybe get a useful zoom lens, since the author spends a good deal of space describing and showing you the fruits of his (probably obscenely large) 28-300mm lens.

One thing I fear in photography is that feeling of committing a transgression against a subject. This is why I rarely photograph people and feel most comfortable with landscapes and architecture and art and scenes. Rarely people, though. This author transgresses left and right and makes amazing art from it, but it still feels like... a lot. A theft of potential? Maybe not. Maybe it's worth it.

Sometimes what's good about a book is that it repeats its titular concepts with examples until they have time to crystalize in memory.… (mais)