Arts Photography New: Oktober 2014

Senin, 06 Oktober 2014

Artist Francis Bacon's Lifetime Accumulated Mess Transported Intact to Irish Museum

I got my DSLR a few years back, and for a while was desperately looking for ways to improve my photography skills, particularly in composition. Photography is such an integral part of travelling. When I come home from a trip, sorting out my photographs and picking out good ones is one of the things I enjoy most. And so I went on the hunt for some of the best photography books on composition. While there are many factors involved in creating a great photograph, I believe that composition is as important as knowing all the dials on your camera and when or how to use them. After all, a great photograph that evokes strong emotions is most powerful, thus the image has to be something special that tells a story too.

Knowing how to compose a good photo is a priceless art and I have never been convinced it could really be taught. I strongly believed at one point that composition had more to do with the sheer talent and imagination of the person behind the lens. That is, until I read Bryan Peterson's book, 'Learning to See Creatively: Design, Color & Composition in Photography', which happened to be on a few professional photographers' reading lists. All the components that go into a well composed photograph is covered here, such as design, shapes, lines, colours and patterns. Subject placement and focus is one of the most important elements in designing a photograph. He invites readers to think critically when composing, so as when to realise that it is acceptable to 'break' basic compositional rules, such as the times when it is wise to place the subject in the centre of the photograph as opposed to following the common 'rule of thirds'. The bonus is that he includes many fabulous images from his portfolio.

Francis Bacon's Studio
By Margarita Cappock
Merrell Publishers Limited, 2005, 240 pages, hardbound, $59.95

Francis Bacon (1909-1992) was born in Ireland to British parents and today is recognized as one of the most significant post-war painters, his disturbing oil portraits acquired by major museum collections worldwide. Bacon is remembered primarily for his symbolic, macabre portrait of Pope Innocent X. London/New York publisher Merrell has produced a definitive, retrospective coffee-table volume on Bacon using the device of his unique (read unimaginably messy) studio as the springboard into his career and lifework.

Six years after his death in 1992 the contents of his rather cramped London studio were donated to the Dublin City Council in Ireland with the understanding that it would be recreated there with all its contents intact for public viewing. Easier said than done, because the studio, Bacon's home and workplace since 1961, contained 7,500 items - a treasure trove of precious artifacts to an art historian. There are two absorbing stories here: the challenge of cataloging, transporting and reassembling the contents of the studio (front door, paint-encrusted walls and all) across the Irish Sea to Dublin, and then the significance of each uncovered item as it related historically to Bacon's oeuvre.

"Maintaining the studio exactly as it stood was crucial to the experience," Dr. Cappock writes. So a team of photographers, archeologists, conservators and curators went to work, launching an indoor archeological dig to create a detailed diagram of exactly where each item lay/stood/hung so that the recreated space would be precisely accurate. Today the reconstructed studio is open to the public at Dublin City Gallery, The Hugh Lane, Charlemont House, Parnell Square, Dublin 1, Ireland.

Needless to say, the piles and piles of clippings, photos, sketches, catalogs, books and even slashed canvases speak volumes to the historic arc of Bacon's work and Dr. Cappock finds in this detritus the inspiration for each phase of his artistic development. Some of the many graphic images Bacon collected over his lifetime reveal the macabre basis for much of his output: massacres, meat carcasses and the assassination of President Kennedy. Other photos show the subjects of his commissioned portraits including Mick Jagger. By the last page the reader has received a detailed, insider's view of the creative evolution of Francis Bacon.

For anyone building a library on 20th century art this impressive, heavy book, Francis Bacon's Studio, is a must.

Peterson further shows readers how to work with, and get the best out of different lighting conditions. He also writes on the various types of lenses and how to select the appropriate one to use on the field.

A highly regarded professional photographer, teacher and author, Peterson's writing style is engaging and his book is highly readable and easy to digest without being too wordy. While seemingly elementary, budding photographers and more advanced ones alike will likely find Peterson's book a great source of reference. I did find this book highly readable and a worthy investment in helping me improve my own photography skills. I do habitually try to visualise a powerful image in my mind's eye first before I release the shutter these days.

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Composing Great Photographs

Origami Book Reviews

There are a number of origami books available which provide beautiful pictures, easy to follow guides and design ideas for all your origami decoration occasions. Origami books range from beginner origami difficulty with simple creations to advanced and expert design books incorporating mathematics and intricate detail into origami decoration production. To decide which book is best for you, here are my recommendations for which origami book you should choose depending on your skill and experience level:

Beginner - For beginners, the best origami book to get you started is the Absolute Beginner's Origami book by Nick Robinson. If online articles or other books with complex diagrams and confusing fold lines have previously deterred you from making origami decorations, then this is definitely the book for you. Featuring colour photos and a simple three step system, Absolute Beginner's Origami teaches even the most amateur of origami decoration makers to make some fantastic sculptures and models. The book can be purchased from Amazon with 20% off it's retail price, and is a great start for origami beginners.

Absolute Beginners Book
Intermediate -If you have some experience with making origami decorations, or want to challenge yourself with some trickier designs, then Ornamental Origami: Exploring 3D Geometric Designs is the book for you. Featuring beautiful colour images on glossy high quality pages, Ornamental Origami: Exploring 3D Geometric Designs has 40 projects for origami enthusiasts to create, with structured advice making creation as easy as possible. This book is best purchased off Amazon, where it can be picked up with a saving of over 10% on it's original price.

Ornamental Book
Advanced - If you are experienced with making origami decorations, and want to make some designs that really will impress and dazzle your friends and family, then Advanced Origami: An Artist's Guide to Performances in Paper is the book for you. This book goes beyond basic "how-to" origami guides, and looks into advanced techniques in origami paper and visionary art needed to make truly spectacular origami decorations. There are ten unique origami designs in the book which cannot be found elsewhere, with complete instructions, photographs and advice on advanced techniques such as wet folding. This book can be purchased for cheap on Amazon, with a 33% saving on it's RRP.

Advanced book
Expert - If you are a master of origami or want to become an expert in the art to produce spectacular origami decorations, then Origami Design Secrets: Mathematical Methods for an Ancient Art is the book for you. Origami Design Secrets is written by Robert J. Lang, one of the world's leading origami artists, and in the book you will learn to make your own unique and expert origami designs and origami sculptures. Techniques are explained in great detail using some fantastic diagrams, and include expert origami methods such as combining uniaxial bases, the circle/river method and tree theory. This expert origami book can be purchased most cheaply from Amazon, with a saving of 16% on it's standard price.

Origami Design Secrets Book
So whatever your origami skill level there is a book for you, each of which will give you the information you need to make some impressive origami decorations for all occasions.

Ebooks on Art Collections, Catalogs, Exhibitions and Color Theory

With the passage of time, electronic books are gaining immense popularity among people of all age groups. The reason behind is their easy availability on eBook stores, which also offer discounts to regular customers. Be it science, sports, history, law, communication or media, electronic books are available on almost all topics. Today, ebooks on art collections, catalogs, exhibitions are highly demanded as these provide an insight into the work done by different artists and their impact on society. These books also contain information about finished works that have not been collected by art collectors.

Exhibition 36 is one of the popular ebooks on art collections, catalogs, exhibitions that is written by Susan Tuttle. This book showcases the altered and repurposed art of 36 mixed-media artists. Through this book, readers will get to know the thoughts of various artists and the articles written by them. Some other electronic books on art collections, catalogs, exhibitions are Civilizing Rituals; Aesthetic Journalism: How to Inform Without Informing; Heritage, Museums and Galleries and New Museum Theory and Practise.

Documents of the 1913 Armory Show: The Electrifying Moment of Modern Art's American Debut contains original publications from the Armory Show (1913). Published by Hol Art Books, this book states how Armory Show changes the perception of American people about art. It also contains "A Layman's Views of an Art Exhibition", a popular essay by Theodore Roosevelt. Readers will also find the entire content of "For and Against: Views on the Infamous 1913 Armory Show" in this book.

Art and Its Publics: Museum Studies at the Millennium is an admired book, which contains various essays by museum professionals as well as academics. This book presents contemporary concerns for art and addresses issues related to museum community. Art and Its Publics: Museum Studies at the Millennium is written in an interesting manner and can be easily downloaded on Mac, Android, Windows, iPad, iphone and various other operating systems.

Colors are always an important part of the art and therefore color theory ebooks are also in huge demand. These book are very useful for beginners as these have important information about proper use of colors and their importance. Paint Along with Jerry Yarnell Learning Composition is a famous electronic book, which contains simple instructions for creating impressive compositions. Through this book, Jerry describes three different composition types, appropriate utilization of negative space and principles of flawless design. Some other books written on color theory are The Complete Color Harmony; Colour and Humanism: Colour Expression over History and Colro Design Workbook.

Barcelona Enshrined - Antoni Gaudi - The Complete Architectural Works by Rainer Zerbst

Rainer Zerbst's book, Antoni Gaudí - The Complete Architectural Works, is just what it says, the complete works. Treated chronologically and in turn, each of the architect's major projects is reviewed, described and analysed. Copious illustrations allow the reader to appreciate the often fascinating -and usually fantastic - detail that Gaudí used. The text, elaborate, itself florid in its description, conveys not only the colour and the shape of Gaudí's work, but also its intent and derivation.

Though it concentrates on the buildings, their features, their detail and their innovations, Rainer Zerbst's book does deal quite adequately with Gaudí's background and inspiration, though it does not attempt to be a biography. It may come as a surprise to many readers that it was England and English art that provided the young architect with his model. The theories of Ruskin advised a return to direct contact with nature. The Pre-Raphaelites resurrected both the Gothic and colour, and also employed minute detail throughout a work rather than invite total concentration on a single, artificially-lit central subject. And then William Morris and the Arts and Crafts movement provided the social and industrial model that aspired to put art at the centre of everyday life. Finally, and not least, it was the English tradition of the ornamental garden that inspired Gaudí's treatment of broader settings.

All of these influenced the young Gaudí. And at the time he was seen as a something of a radical. Later, when, if anything, the architect's style became more fluid and less self-conscious, he had already shaved off his beard and cut his hair in order to aspire to membership of the local establishment. In England, the once revolutionary Pre-Raphs had largely done the same.

In presenting Gaudí's woks chronologically, Rainer Zerbst is able to chart the development of the artist's style, both personal and professional. The reader can follow the development of a style, see how ideas came to maturity and then were re-used and re-applied. The reader can also clearly understand how Gaudí's work anticipates both Dalí and Miró, both in its content and its use of colour. Placing minor works together in a final chapter, however, has the feel of afterthought and does detract from the overall experience.

For anyone who has visited Barcelona and has seen some of these buildings close up, this book is a must. It really does fill in the detail that a casual observation would surely miss. And for anyone who has not yet visited the Catalan capital, Rainer Zerbst's book, Antoni Gaudí, could conceivably provide the stimulus to make that visit at the first available opportunity. Gaudí's work is something that is thoroughly worth real-life experience. Only in the rather scant treatment of Sagrada Familia is the book rather wanting, but then an adequate description of such a project would be a book in itself. Sagrada Familia, like the man who conceived it, is unique.

How to Collect Museum Catalogues From the Netherlands

Collecting Crouwel, Sanberg and Wissing is not only valuable but fun too!

How to start your collection of (dutch) MUSEUM catalogues from the most important designers from last century.

WHAT TO LOOK FOR

- focus on the great names in dutch typography and layout. Sandberg, Crouwel, Piet Zwart, Benno Wissing and Paul Schuitema are all worldwide known for their quality.
- always look at the quality of the item offered. Pristine items are practically non existent, but mint can be found. Better to pay a few dollars extra than to collect an item which is less perfect.
- Larger museums have always been in a position to commission their best catalogues to the best designers.
- The edition size is also important and makes a publication even more wanted than when the edition is small. Please note that many Museum publications are from edition sizes between 500 and 1700 which are small already. You can expect that many of these will be destroyed in the 50 years that they were shelved and only a small number survived.
- Early catalogues for startin, but now famous artists, are sought after and deserve a premium.
- signed copies are even more collectable and sometimes they are signed and numbered from a special edition which makes them more scarce and highly collectable.

- Then there is what I call "a secret ingredient" which in many cases is not recognised by others. These great designers included in their designs sometimes original art. Silkscreens were used as covers. Sometimes a special inlay with lithography, etching or silkscreen was inserted. In the best cases these were signed which makes them outright valuable, but can in most cases be had at a fraction of the price of an original work of art. (examples are Escher, Miro, Calder and Arp for their Stedelijk Museum catalogues and other publications).

As noted before the larger museums commissioned their best catalogues to the best designers.
First you must focus in these designers who worked with the largest museums in the Netherlands.

THE DESIGNERS:

Probably the most important and well known is Willem Sandberg. Director and designer for the Stedelijk Museum in the 50's and early 60's. Known for his bold use of lettering and recognisable lay out with thorn letters used as illustrations. Many of the designed Sandberg catalogues have become classics.

About 350 catalogues were designed for the Stedelijk Museum by Sandberg

Secondly there is Wim Crouwel, who was responsible for many catalogues from the sixties and seventies and later become director of the Museum Boymans van Beuningen. He designed some 300 catalogues for the Stedelijk Museum.

In Rotterdam there was also Benno Wissing who later started with Wim Crouwel Total Design. There are some similarities between Sandberg and early Wissing but both have a style of their own.

Piet Zwart and Paul Schuitema are known for their lay outs with photo collage and are highly collectable too.

THE MUSEUMS

The largest museum in the Netherlands are:

Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam, published ca. 1100 catalogues over 60 years. Designers were Sandberg, Piet Zwart and Wim Crouwel

Museum Boymans van Beuningen. Main designers were Benno Wissing and 3VO

Haags Gemeentemuseum. Published ca. 600 catalogues over 60 years. Designers were Foppe, Janssen, Lebbink ao.

Van Abbemuseum. Is the small museum with the great designers. Wim Crouwel worked for them in his early days, but do not forget Jan van Toorn who is also know for his seventies exhibition designs.

Changing Tastes - A Text-Book on the History of Painting by John Charles Van Dyke

A Text-Book on the History of Painting by John Charles Van Dyke was published a century ago. Today it offers the modern reader not only potted, period critiques of important artists, but also a remarkable insight into how aesthetics change from generation to generation. John Charles Van Dyke's assessments of some work will surprise today's reader, especially his attitudes towards some contemporary artists who received rather hostile reactions from some quarters when their work was first exhibited.

The book deals with the European tradition. It makes no excuses for this. At the time, non-European art was perhaps less well known in Western critical circles. Perhaps also, it was regarded as somehow inferior, perhaps also merely because it was not European in origin. But Van Dyke does offer us a working distinction that excludes most non-European art from his survey, that of the difference between observation and expression. Only that which aims at expression, for van Dyke at least, is worthy of the label "art". Somehow ancient Egyptian art makes it into the oeuvre, probably because it was also represented in museums that were close at hand and accessible.

Two painters in particular illustrate the difference in treatment between van Dyke's age and our own, El Greco and Alma-Tadema. El Greco is hardly mentioned as a figure in sixteenth century Spain, his achievements apparently being regarded as rather localised on Toledo. Thus a figure now regarded as a unique stylist and visionary hardly figures in this text. Alma-Tadema, whose academicism and detail might today offer summary and epitome of the staid Victorian England that toyed euphemistically with the erotic is also dismissed. And one of the few English painters to be raised to the peerage, Frederick Leighton, also did not impress Professor Van Dyke. Neither, it seems, did Albrecht Durer.

Central to Van Dyke's aesthetic is a judgment as to whether the painter not only represents, interprets and expresses, but also constructs a painting. Mere reality is never enough, it seems, life requiring the skill of an editor or architect to render its experience communicable. It is interesting to reflect on how much or little we still value this aspect of aesthetics in today's painting.

Some of Van Dyke's observations will at least entertain. Franz Hals, we learn, lived a rather careless life. William Blake was hardly a painter at all. A Dutchman is attributed with the faint praise of being a unique painter of poultry. Matthew Maris is criticised for being a recorder of visions and dreams rather than the substantial things of earth, while Turner is dismissed as bizarre and extravagant, qualities that today might enhance rather than diminish his reputation.

But Van Dyke's book remains an interesting, informative and rewarding read, despite its distance from contemporary thinking. He is especially strong in his summary descriptions of the different Italian schools of the late Gothic and Renaissance eras. It is more than useful to be reminded of how independent these city states were at the time and how little they managed to influence one another. A Text-Book on the History of Painting by John Charles Van Dyke remains, then, an essential read for anyone interested in the history of art. Much has changed, but then there is much that has not.

Trick Photography and Special Effects E-Book - Inspirational Or A Waste Of Your Money?

It's Christmas. The kids are home from school, the family is together and our thoughts are on letting go and having fun. It's the silly season as we say in Australia. I wasn't going to review another weight loss solution or online money making program. I wanted to review something that was fun and something I was interested in. Photography for me is relaxing and fun and I hoped others feel that same way too.

How many of you got a camera for Christmas? OK... How many of you love photography? Now, how many are envious of other photographer's work and wish you can create pictures like they can? How many of you aren't very good at Photoshop but love to learn more? And how many, like me, are old school and were taught to do everything in camera not on a computer? I thought so, well if you answered yes to any one of these questions I want to tell you about an e-Book you'll love. It's the Trick Photography and Special Effects e-Book. It teaches, it inspires and it is a lot of fun this Christmas holidays.

What Is Trick Photography and Special Effects?

Trick Photography and Special Effects is a 190 page e-Book. This e-book is made so it's easy to understand whether you are a beginner, advanced or a working professional. It's well thought out with literally hundreds of real examples and real photos taken by photographers for photographers. You can open this book on almost any page and get engrossed in topics that are fun to do and at the same time learn more about what we love doing, which is photography. I love it because even though it's very detailed it also re-ignites your creativity with new ideas and new techniques. There is something in it for everybody who is into photography.

Trick Photography and Special Effects is broken up into 3 categories:

Long Exposure Effects and Light Painting:
• Fundamental lights and techniques
• Light sources
• Light painting techniques
• Lightning
• Motion blur
• Star trails
• Many more fun long exposures

Trick Photography and Special Effects:
• In-Camera illusions
• HDR photography
• Infrared photography
• 360 Degree panoramas
• The Droste Effect
• Time-Displacement photography via scanner
• The Harris Shutter Effect

Photoshop Projects:
• Introduction to layer masks and blending modes
• Multiplicity photography
• Levitation photography
• The invisible man
• Flash manipulation
• Fake tilt-shift photography
• Mixing day with night

This e-Book is inspirational, exciting and a great waste of time over the holiday season. You will have fun and learn something in the process. Best of all it will get you doing something that adds to your enjoyment of life and your enjoyment of photography.

1,000 Artist Journal Pages eBook

"The more light you allow within you, the brighter the world you live in will be," says Shakti Gawain. The world inside oneself can easily be expressed through journaling, which is the manner of participating in self exploration and personal expression without using the common method of sequential thinking. In journals, artists get a free-wheeling medium to doodle, rant and express them. Through journaling, a tantalizing view of interior life can be obtained. More than 1000 such journal pages are presented colourfully in the 1,000 Artist Journal Pages eBook.

The objective of journals is to present the viewer rich, visual inspiration, much like what an artist does through his canvas. The 1,000 Artist Journal Pages eBook is the first book to present more than 1000 journal pages in an attractive visual format. This eBook is capable of capturing the attention of a large group of artists who like to embrace and experiment with this medium. Journaling as a medium has become part of popular culture in a big way and through this eBook, a wide array of ideas; techniques and themes are offered to the budding mixed media enthusiasts.

The 1,000 Artist Journal Pages eBook tells the user that there are a number of benefits associated with journaling. One of them is that it helps in solving tricky issues, which are often not looked at from a third-person perspective. The solution of such problems is often not clear when viewed as a first-person. Similarly, clarity of thought can also be obtained through journal writing. It helps in deciding the appropriate course of action to be taken, in the presence of several options. Apart from this, one can also make use of journals to track progress from a few years back. If one is not satisfied with the current position of life, it may be helpful to re-read what was written some years ago. This could act as a motivator for the future.

Experienced journal makers feel that there is a lot of power in the written word, which helps in giving an outlet for pent up feelings. However, they also feel sometimes that words fail to describe a particular situation or how one is feeling. In such situations, journal makers use drawing or prepare a collage to represent their feelings, which may not be appropriately described through analytical writing. The eBook presents an interesting world of descriptive imagination, as experienced by the individual artists. This implies that the eBook would be good not just for budding artists, but also for persons with a creative bent of mind.

Presenting 1,000 pages of colourful illustrations makes the eBook attractive to its audience, much like the saying, "A picture speaks a thousand words." Today, with the advent of modern printing technology, it has been realised that colourful literature or words are more attractive than black and white. As an example, colourful newspapers connect with number of readers as compared to black and white ones. Apart from everything else mentioned above, the 1,000 Artist Journal Pages eBook is easy to carry, since it can be downloaded on any eBook reader.

Trick Photography and Special Effects - A Photographer's Magic

If photography is your passion and you are troubled for not owning an expensive camera, you need not worry. Trick Photography and Special Effects' is at your disposal! This eBook has everything that could be instrumental for a budding photographer as the name very well indicates. The book has everything from photographs by professionals, video tutorials and a long set of instructions.

A True Delight

The Trick Photography and Special Effects eBook is nothing short of taking professional classes from an accomplished photographer. It has captured almost all sorts of photography at the same timing revealing all the tricks that help capture the perfect photographs.

The picturesque shots contained in the book are enough to take your breath away. It seems even Photoshop could not accomplish the feat of making pictures look that attractive. The book is rage because of the variety of pictures it caters to like freezing motion, light painting techniques, motion blur, star trails, special effects, 3D images, long exposure effects and much more.

Sharboneau's Expertise

Evan Sharboneau has indeed opened avenues for many passionate photographers out there who cannot afford to indulge in luxuries like expensive equipments and classes. Sharboneau has been at his creative best in the book and this reflects in the satisfaction and exhilaration of the readers after having read Trick Photography and Special Effects. In fact, the book is a revolutionary attempt as many pro-photographers do not like to reveal their photography secrets.

To begin with, the book does not require the reader to be a master in photography. Moreover, the numerous photos and videos are adept to make an amateur develop an interest in photography. You could sometimes be lost in these photographs and videos. The book has all the tricks for capturing infrared lights to taking surreal pictures. It just makes your imagination come true.

A Must Read

Trick Photography and Special Effects is a photographer's magic journal and has an immense potential to contribute to his growth as an artist. It answers all the hows' of photography. Along with tricks and techniques of photography, the book also mentions the best editing tricks.

I would highly recommend this book. The ideas are original and explained in the simplest manner possible. However, there is no substitute for hard work and practice. So, perseverance will take you much ahead. The eBook format of the book makes it all the more helpful and accessible. You can do full justice to the book by grabbing a copy because some things can be best understood by self-analysis.

Why Learn Trick Photography and Special Effects

Photography is more than just snapping pictures, it is a recognized art form that harnesses the creative expression of the photographer. While anyone can take a picture, only someone who understands the tools and resources available to the photographer can get the most out of their work.

In fact, learning about trick photography and special effects can not only increase your repertoire in terms of your knowledge base, it can also expand your talents and raise your skill levels when it comes to photography. Today, there is a new eBook available that will teach you all the basics of expanding your photographic skills by incorporating proven and powerful techniques. This new eBook is appropriately titled, "Trick Photography and Special Effects" by Evan Sharboneau

What is "Trick Photography and Special Effects"?

Put simply, "Trick Photography and Special Effects" by Evan Sharboneau is the eBook that provides all the information necessary to create stunning, beautiful images and wonderful special effects. This eBook is designed to teach you the basics and provide new techniques in many different areas, including;

• Long Exposure
• Light Painting
• How to Create In-Camera Illusions
• 3D & High Speed Photography
• Bubbles, Smoke and Double Exposure
• HDR & Infrared Photography
• Creating Panoramas & Creative Compositions
• Time Displacement
• Layer Mask, Levitation & Multiplicity Photography
• Invisible Man
• The Harris Shutter and Droste Effect
• Mixing Day & Night and Much, Much More

All of these elements are taught in the "Trick Photography and Special Effects" eBook and more. Plus, the layout of each technique is accompanied by plenty of photographs, graphs and simple text so you can quickly pick them up. The purpose of this eBook is to provide you with the basics and the tools needed to create wonderful photographs and to get the most out of your camera.

How Can You Improve your Photographic Skills and Abilities with this Resource?
There are a number of ways that this eBook can improve the natural skills and talents already inside you. While anyone can become a great photographer, only those who understand and apply the techniques and tricks of this profession can truly excel.

Learn New Techniques: In this eBook, you will learn some of the basic and advanced techniques that can not only improve your skills, but expand the way you view photography. The techniques that are presented here have actually been around for a while, but not that many photographers take advantage of them.

Bolster Your Imagination: If there is any one thing that holds a photographer back, it is the inability to tap into their imagination and come up with a new perspective or way of shooting a particular shot. This eBook can overcome that tendency and help you to release the talents inside you.

The In-Camera Special Effects Techniques
The simple techniques that are presented in this book can provide you with an entirely new perspective on how to shoot simple scenes. You can use many of these techniques to create entirely new types of photographs for your portfolio. What follows are examples of photographic tricks that can be done in camera and without any assistance from editing software such as Photoshop.

Forced perspective shots for example, where two objects of vastly different size can appear to be next to each other is somewhat difficult to realistically achieve unless you know a few tricks. For example;

• Set the aperture to the lowest possible setting as the amount of light entering the camera will positively affect the depth of field, meaning that you'll achieve a more realistic effect.

Upside Down Reflections can also be difficult to achieve as most people make a few simple mistakes that don't get the right effect.

• Be sure to focus to on the reflection and not the object when taking the picture.

Also, you can experiment by disrupting the reflection. For example, you can toss a rock into the water if that is the reflecting surface.

A Shadow Heart trick can be performed with a simple ring, an open book and a light source from behind.

• If you set the ring upright in an open book in the crevasse between each side, the light source will create a shadow ring on the paper.

The Unscrewed Light bulb is a great photographic trick that can be performed with a simple, incandescent bulb that is frosted and a small light source behind the bulb itself.

• When you take a photograph of the bulb with a smaller light source, such as an LED or even a small flashlight, behind it, the bulb will appear to be on even though it is unattached to any power source.

Such simple, yet effective tricks are only a small part of the information presented in this book. You can learn a great deal about how to create new types of images from your imagination thanks to the building blocks of information inside this book.

Perhaps just as important as the information presented in this eBook is how it encourages you to continue exploring for new techniques in photography. One way to bolster your interests is by joining a mailing list at (www.blog.sgeastphoto.com) that provides new lessons, tricks and information that is being shared by photographers around the world. Here is just one of the many informative mailing list resources you can use to provide valuable ideas and information about trick photography and special effects.

Why You Should Buy "Trick Photography and Special Effects"

Whether you are an experienced photographer looking to expand your base of knowledge or are just beginning in the field, you owe it to yourself to get this resource. "Trick Photography and Special Effects" by Evan Sharboneau will provide you what everything needed to enhance your artistic abilities and increase your base of knowledge when it comes to improving your photographic abilities.

Gifted American Photographer Documents Grandeur, Plight of Mali's Fabled Timbuktu

Timbuktu is a city that has long gripped the Western imagination. It sits on the Niger River, that clearly marked dividing line between the sandy deserts of North Africa and the green, moist, fertile lands of tropical and sub-tropical Africa, the iconic jungles we associate with Congo and a blazing equatorial sun.

Timbuktu is also rooted deeply in the English language. Even young children speak of Timbuktu in the sense of "as far away from where I am now as it is possible to get." And some of its charm, too, derives simply from the euphony of the word: "Timbuktu" slips off the tongue. We also speak definitively of "Sub-Saharan Africa" as though that were itself a name. Is that not an odd thing to do? Would we ever call the United States and Mexico "Sub-Canadian America"?

Timbuktu has an importance belied by its geographic isolation because it has served now for millennia as the doorway between the deserts and the jungles of Africa. It is the passage that one had to walk through, when camels and canoes were the principal vehicles of African travel, to get from North Africa to Sub-Saharan Africa -- and back again. It maintained that role well into the 20th century, and it maintains it still today, at least symbolically.

Because of its critical position as the gateway to the south, Arab traders and evangelists from the seventh and eighth centuries onward made Timbuktu a way station of very special significance. Its two principal mosques are magnificent works of architecture, and Timbuktu's Islamic libraries have been compared in stature to those of Baghdad and Cairo.

Though it has been no stranger to conflict over the centuries, Timbuktu today is in acute, grave danger, a sort of danger it has not faced before. Timbuktu may actually risk being destroyed because Islamic militias are battling over the surrounding territory and the very city itself.

These militias, with fanatical zeal, have already damaged ancient tombs which commemorate the final resting place of Sufi saints, now deemed to be "idolatrous" by Ansar Dine, an extremist group. A dozen sacred tombs have already been vandalized.

Worse, Timbuktu's ancient libraries, housing priceless collections of ancient Islamic texts that the UNESCO World Heritage Center estimates may number 300,000, (including books on early Islamic studies of mathematics and science -- the treasure trove is not limited to religious tracts), are now at risk of being burned or destroyed.

These priceless texts cannot be replaced. Some of them exist solely as one-time, unique calligraphy on scrolls. Destroy the single copy in Timbuktu and there are no sister copies in Cairo or Baghdad to preserve its intellectual content. Though some manuscripts have been moved to safer repositories, too many remain in Timbuktu, where imams have preserved them for centuries. But the imams have never faced the threat they face today.

And yet these books and scrolls could be saved both in actuality and as digital copies -- if there was a will and a way expressed by the greater international community that made this a focus of global concern. Part of the problem is that the calamity facing Timbuktu is not widely known in Europe and America.

And now comes a brilliant young American photographer and writer, Alexandra Huddleston, who has given a substantial portion of the last eight years of her life documenting, in magnificent images and moving words, the dire threat that faces Timbuktu, both its living people and its living treasures. She has put all her work into a book, a volume that will hold you prisoner.

Her 96-page text is titled "333 Saints: a Life of Scholarship in Timbuktu" and it tells the story of a city under siege -- there is no less blunt way to put it -- by Islamic fanatics who think nothing of killing people and less of killing texts. Supported in part by her Fulbright, Alexandra Huddleston tells in photographs and words the story of Timbuktu's long lineage of Islamic scholarship, and of how that scholarship is now imperilled as never before.

In a short piece she wrote for the development group Kickstarter, Huddleston says that her book "tells a story of discovery, a rich and beautiful African intellectual culture that remains largely unknown in the West. It is a book about men and women who love books -- scholars of all ages who seek knowledge and wisdom through learning. It is about a city that has built its identity around a culture of scholarship."

Alexandra Huddleston is a native of Africa, the daughter of Foreign Service parents then stationed in Sierra Leone. Though she spent time growing up in Washington, D.C., she has traveled extensively all over the world and she fell in love with Mali, that mysterious home to so many elegant peoples that is so deeply hidden in the southern Sahara, a nation that gently touches, too, in its southern precincts, Africa's moist, green lushness.

Alexandra was introduced to Mali by her mother Vicki Huddleston, who had two tours of duty at the U.S. Embassy in Mali, first as a staffer in the political and economic section early in her career and later as ambassador. Vicki Huddleston began her overseas journeys as a young Peace Corps volunteer in Peru, so Alexandra's affection for remote and difficult places appears to be deep in her DNA.

Alexandra Huddleston's work "333 Saints: a Life of Scholarship in Timbuktu" must be approached by American and European readers with a sense of urgency, for there is a real risk of cultural extinction here, the permanent loss of treasures that help inform us of who we are. There are scientific treasures here, too, dating from that period when Islamic science eclipsed the backward European scholarship of the Middle Ages.

Many in this country were aghast when the Taliban destroyed the Buddhas of Bamiyan in central Afghanistan a dozen years ago, using precisely the same "logic" (that they are idolatrous) now being directed against Timbuktu's Sufi saints and Islamic libraries.

But what is happening in Timbuktu is arguably much worse, because manuscripts encode vastly more human thought, history, emotion, and knowledge than stone statues are capable of doing. Where is the sense of outrage that is now needed?

Anyone who loves Africa will cherish this book. And by focussing attention on the dire predicament in Timbuktu, perhaps a solution can be found that will preserve this human heritage for those who come later, who may treat these treasures more wisely.

Worth Every Penny Book Review

As a business owner of a home-based photography studio, I find that constant education is vital to the continued growth of my business. There are a variety of forms of education for photographers and other business owners: conferences, classes, local meetings, or books being a few. Books are often one of the cheaper forms of education and I find a lot of great insights from books like Worth Every Penny.

Worth Every Penny is a business book written by both Sarah Petty and Erin Verbeck founder and chief of The Joy of Marketing. This book is targeted toward small business owners running boutique style businesses. While bigger businesses are focused on volume, boutique businesses are focused on experience and high-end, quality products. This book helps boutique business owners understand some of the keys necessary to running their boutique business.

Worth Every Penny gives great advice on how to build a strong brand to market to your ideal client base, which is crucial in a boutique business. It's importance to convey luxury and a high-end experience to your current and feature client base. The book also discusses strategies for creating a strong marketing and advertising campaign to reflect this idea and what makes your business unique. It is always important to convey what makes your business different and more desirable than your competition.

A huge part of boutique businesses is building relationships. When you aren't working with a high volume business, you have the time to invest in getting to know your clients. Worth Every Penny discusses ways to convey your appreciation to your customers and develop strong relationships with them, which can help grow your business.

And of course, with the extra time, value, and care dedicated to the customers of a boutique business, a higher price is often a necessity. Worth Every Penny discusses methods for pricing your products and adding additional value to your clients orders. After all, to be a viable business, you need to make a profit.

I personally found Sarah Petty & Erin Verbeck's book, Worth Every Penny, to be incredibly beneficial and insightful in working on my own business. Determining my strengths and unique products, how to market them and provide my clients with the best care possible are incredibly important to me, and this book has helped me narrow down and hone these things. I would highly recommend this book to any boutique business - not just photography business owners!

Stephanie lives in Central IL, is married to her best friend, Ryan, and enjoys the company of her crazy pups, Kit & Lucy. She is the owner of Green Tree Media Photography and is passionate about photography.

Stephanie received her Bachelor of Fine Arts degree in photography and design from Millikin University. She worked for Jones & Thomas, an advertising agency in Decatur, IL for 3 years doing both design and photography before starting up her own business as a natural light and lifestyle photographer.

Great Masters In Painting And Sculpture: Frans Hals by Gerald S. Davies

Artistic taste is forever changing and there is obviously no such thing as a balanced opinion in the arts, where personal judgment and preference are the only currencies. And so styles come and go, bodies of work pass in and out of favour. The works of JS Bach were forgotten until revived a century on by Mendelssohn. Shakespeare was once derided as dense and difficult. And a Dutch painter called Frans Hals thankfully did not witness, a century after his death, his works changing hands for next to nothing. And, since taste continues to change, it is always informative to read the critical opinions of former eras, because it might be possible that critics really did see things differently.

Published in 1904, Frans Hals by Gerald S. Davies was written more than a century on from the low point of the artist's stature, and the better part of two and a half centuries after the painter's death in 1666. Copiously illustrated with glossy black and white plates, the book formed part of a series called Great Masters in Painting and Sculpture. We must thus anticipate the text to be of the skimping quality we usually expect when we perhaps reluctantly open up a populist publisher's 'Great Artists' series.

But this 1904 volume is beautifully written. And what really does surprise is the uncluttered, modern style of the prose. There are no great condescending or judgmental passages about the artist or his character. There is considerable fact about his life, about which in reality we know remarkably little. But above all the book contains some inspired writing on and analytical observation of the paintings, some of which, incidentally, have since been reattributed. This adds another aspect to the experience, since it illustrates how our appreciation of the arts is very much conditioned by what we think we might know about the context or source of the object.

Frans Hals, it appears, was something of a rake. He was never rich, was in fact often in debt and, more often than not, close to penniless. He spent much of his time in the pub, where he drank to excess. He married early, and the union endured, but we now next to nothing about his domestic life. And yet, the respectable gentlemen of the St. Joris Shooting Guild regularly employed him to depict the club members in all their proud finery, full face or three-quarter front, depending on how much each sitter had contributed to the funding of the project.

Gerald Davies's text is especially successful in its identification and description of the detail in the pictures. He identifies and locates elements of the artist's style that the casual observer would simply not see, and throughout he approaches his subject with an enthusiasm that draws the reader into the discussion and is never didactic. In several sections of the book, the author draws parallels and cites contrasts with Rubens, Van Dyck and Rembrandt, all of whom, of course, achieved significantly more fame in their lifetimes than Hals did in his. Their work, perhaps, never did go out of favour, but that of Frans Hals certainly did. Painted largely in greys and black, the paintings of Frans Hals often appear to be more puritan in spirit even than their strait-laced sitters.

But then, as Davies point out, there is a young man bearing a standard, a coloured sash, an item of still life that adds dramatic statement by introducing contrast. And, of course, there are the chuckling wenches, the singing drunks and the other low life subjects that Hals chose to paint where, with arguably unique skill and talent, he captured an instantaneous expression as if it had been photographed.

Davies also insists that the paintings of Hals need a large viewing space. For the author, close-up viewing is too revealing of a technique that often approaches complete abstraction. And here we do find a difference from today's critical taste, where such free brushwork would be cited as evidence of an artistic strength. Davies does not criticise it, but his era preferred not to scrutinise it in search of the psychological dimension that is now so completely essential to any critical analysis of an artist's work.

Tastes may change and artists may come in and out of favour. Frans Hals continues to be seen as one of the greatest of painters and in the intervening years much has been written about him. But great art endures because it summarises the sensibilities of its era, at least those we insist on imposing upon it. Great writing works the same way and let us continue to include in that category critical works such as this Davies book on Hals, purely on its contemporary relevance and not merely because it offers an historical perspective on the work.

Philip Spires is author of A Search for Donald Cottee is a comic tragedy about individualism.

http://www.philipspires.co.uk/search_for_donald_cottee.htm

Donald, nicknamed Donkey, is an internet Don Quixote. Donkey Cottee and his wife, Poncho Suzie, have retired to Benidorm from their north of England mining village. Don has left behind his incessant self-education and Suzie has turned the corner of her illness. Their new life an eternal holiday on a campsite. To share the experience they blog. But they can never escape their Yorkshire origins, Don's environmental campaigns and Suzie's quest for business success as a nightclub boss take over their lives.

Six Favorite Design Books

When I was growing up in Los Angeles I was a bookworm because I was kind of a lonely little girl, and I was able to lose myself in the fantasy world of books. My parents encouraged me to read, and I read everything I could get my hands on. As an adult, I'm still a voracious reader - and a speed reader, to boot. There's nothing like the tactile sensation of a book's weight in your hand and the action of turning the pages. To me, it's a loving tribute to the written words and beautiful images that are contained within the pages of a book.

That's why I have a hefty book collection at home - most of them design books, of course. Not only are they treasured sources of knowledge and inspiration that I turn to repeatedly, they provide an ease of use that simply is not available on the Internet or an e-reader. Unlike a novel, which you read from the first page to the last, design books are made to be flipped through. And you simply cannot flip through a hand-held device the way you can a book.

So, with that, here are my six favorite design books:

1. Judith Miller, "Furniture: World Styles from Classical to Contemporary." Hands down, the best book on identifying styles. Filled with details, details, details. Information on materials, why something looks the way it does, juicy tidbits, the people and events influencing furniture design. This is the book I wish I had written! It's my bible.

2. Christopher Payne (general editor), "Sotheby's Concise Encyclopedia of Furniture." Christopher Payne is a Brit and has the crisp and charming manner of writing that the Brits are known for. This is one of my go-to-books for quick and concise information on a particular style.

3. Metropolitan Museum of Art, "Period Rooms in the Metropolitan Museum of Art." Luscious images of the fabulous period rooms at the Met from Jacobean to Frank Lloyd Wright.

4. Frederick Litchfield, "Illustrated History of Furniture: From the Earliest to the Present Time." I have the 1893 edition that I printed out from Project Gutenberg, and it is fabulous! Incredibly detailed illustrations of furniture and period rooms. There are no photos, only detailed illustrations. Lots of juicy details about various designers and historical figures.

5. Mario Praz, "An Illustrated History of Interior Decoration: from Pompeii to Art Nouveau." Mostly illustrated through paintings of the period, but a great resource of entire room schemes seen through artists' eyes.

6. Virginia McAlester and Lee McAlester, "Great American Houses and Their Architectural Styles." Beautiful photos and floor plans of some of the top examples of American architectural styles.