Landscape Photography: Four Seasons - Hardcover

Gatcum, Chris

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0240817850 ISBN 13: 9780240817859

Publisher: Focal Press, 2011

Synopsis

Landscape photography is one of the medium's most popular areas. New technology and techniques have made it possible to interpret the landscape in exciting new ways, and a host of amateur and professional photographers are rising to the challenge. Each volume in this set of four seasonally-themed books is small enough to go anywhere with you, and offers a wealth of tips and tricks alongside stunning contemporary landscape images from a selection of today's best photographers. Here's an idea of what you can learn:

Spring - Everything about the natural environment is changing at lightning pace, from the blossoming flowers and trees to the weather itself. The tips, tricks, and location ideas in these pages will help you get every shot perfect, and take advantage of the extended "magic hours" after dawn and before dusk.

Summer - Full sun is perfect for the beach, but challenging for photographers. The advice in this book will help you bring out every detail in brightly lit scenes and the accompanying dark shadows. It's a great opportunity for contemporary HDR work, or dramatic, high-contrast compositions.

Fall - Traditionally known as the most beautiful season of the year, but with everyone competing to catch the reddening leaves how can you make sure your pictures stand head and shoulders above the rest? This volume is packed with tips on composing with color and ensuring that your camera captures every tone perfectly.

Winter - Covering everything you need to shoot breath-taking winter scenes, from protecting your equipment from the elements, to understanding how and when to override your camera's built-in metering. Winter is also the season that responds best to black and white, giving you another set of options in the field and the digital darkroom alike.

*Learn how to go beyond the clichés of landscape shooting - i.e., use the colors of fall for composing rather than simply capture

*Contributing photographers provide a wide variety of examples to inspire your own imagery

*Perfectly priced as a gift for yourself or the favorite photographer in your life

About this title

Review:

Amazon Exclusive: A Letter from Chris Gatcum, Author of Landscape Photography: Four Seasons

Chris Gatcum

Dear Amazon Readers:

Whether it’s hot or cold, wet or dry, or any combination of these (and other climatic conditions), each of the four seasons is unique. This strongly affects landscape photography, as the distinctive nature of a season creates its own issues that need to be addressed. It may be the physical appearance of the land that changes as snow covers the ground or the leaves turn fiery in fall, or the mood conveyed by bright sunshine versus heavy skies, but your approach to photographing the landscape must change also. This could mean that you determine your exposures in a slightly different way, make a fundamental change in what--and when--you photograph, or there may be different requirements in what you put in your camera bag and what you leave out.

With Landscape Photography: The Four Seasons, my intention was simple: to address each of the seasons as a unique photographic challenge, rather than relegating them to a footnote in landscape photography as a whole. From essential kit to technical considerations, I hope that the outcome is a comprehensive volume that will present novice photographers with the problems--and the solutions--they are likely to encounter when it comes to photographing outdoors, regardless of the time of year.

--Chris Gatcum

Spring: For many photographers, spring marks the ideal opportunity to get out in the landscape. Capturing the essence of a season is all about exploring the changes in the landscape that occur at particular times of the year, but the start of spring is one of the most challenging--and often subdued--seasons for landscape photography.

Summer: Typified by long, warm days and bright, sunny skies, summer is the season when the weather is kinder to us, and heading outdoors becomes a pleasure rather than a chore. It’s this natural desire to be outside that makes summer the perfect time to get out and about with your camera.

Fall: What makes this season special ? It’s a simple question that all landscape photographers should ask themselves, but in fall the answer is relatively straightforward: color. Although every season marks a change in the natural world, fall is perhaps the most visibly obvious, as the lush greens of summer give way to barren winter landscapes in a fanfare of color.

Winter: Snow. It’s common in some places and perhaps unheard of in others, but regardless of where you live, it is somehow intrinsically embedded in our collective psyche as a sure sign that winter is upon us. If you don’t believe me, simply type “winter” into your internet search engine and take a look at the pictures associated with it--almost all of them will contain a snowy element.

About the Author:

Chris Gatcum has lived and breathed photography for over two decades, working as a pro photographer, journalist, specialist magazine and book editor, and best-selling author. A passionate advocate of experimental digital and traditional photography, he is as comfortable conducting technical camera tests as he is demystifying the art of photography for the rest of us.

About this edition

• Publisher: Focal Press
• Publication date: 2011
• ISBN 10: 0240817850
• ISBN 13: 9780240817859
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 4