Did you learn photography from a book (at least initially)?

No. I had a friend at university who was a photographer. He showed me. I used the department's 35mm Russian Zenit manual everything - including aperture stop-down. There was also a darkroom that hardly anyone used. I stayed that summer and had it almost to myself. In August you start to notice that everyone around me was sporting a tan and I was just a touch above ghostly white.

In August you start to notice that everyone around me was sporting a tan and I was just a touch above ghostly white.

 

That's why I did all of my high school printing at night . . .

Ah but the fingernails...:D

I didn't learn photography from a book, per sé.

 

But...I believe my early learning was greatly influenced from photo books by photographers whose work I greatly admired. Here's a few, some with titles I remember: Richard Avedon (in the American West), Daido Moiyama (Shinjuku), Robert Frank (The Americans), Manuel Alvarez Bravo, Graciela Iturbide, Garry Winogrand, Diane Arbus, Kikuji Kawada (The Map), Arnold Newman, Bruce Gilden, Robert Doisneau, Helen Levitt, Susan Meiselas, Boogie.

 

And...a special hat-tip to Jeff Spirer, whose street photos and portraits were a huge influence, along with hanging with him for quite a few years making photos and talking about photography.

Initially, I learned the most by reading a huge stack of Popular Photography magazines in my father's barn. He began subscribing in the late 1940s. I started at the top of the pile (1970s) and worked my way down, so I learned the history backwards. It was great, though. Later I read books, took a college course, and experimented on my own. Nowadays beginners can find information on the Internet instead of in photography magazines. But the crucial difference is that the magazines were professionally written and edited, so the information was 99% correct. On the Internet, maybe only 50% is correct, and beginners can't tell which 50% to believe. :-)

I first learned still photography from a paperback book, Better Pictures: How to get the most out of your camera, by Joseph C. Kelley, Dell Publishing, 1957, bought used some years after it was published. The promise in the title was true--it helped me get the most out of my first camera, a Yashica YK. As a child I couldn't afford much film, and my parents only indulged me from time to time, so that much of what I learned came from reading. I still have the book, in loose pages, the binding almost entirely gone.

One of the most difficult tasks is to unlearn erroneous information. An example is the development of prints. We have all seen TV and movie scenes where a print is developed under a red light, then pulled out as soon as a visible image appears. In practice, this occurs at half the recommended development time or less, and results in a muddy image. Secondly, holding up a print wet with developer drips where you really don't want spills to occur. Do I have to mention that for B&W prints, you use a greenish-yellow OA safelight, not a red light for orthochromatic film, obsolete since the early 40's.

 

My epiphany of sorts was learning to develop prints for the recommended time, using the second hand on a wall clock, of 1-1/2 to 2 minutes (usually the former for Dektol). I have never actually seen this admonition in print, but it should be.

 

The corollary is that I have learned to distrust public media, including the news, until I can corroborate the facts. In many cases where I have personal expertise, they have been wrong, incomplete or misleading.

Well the book I quoted was from my college course at Loyola, New Orleans, so I was REASONABLY sure it was approximately on target. Before then, I didn't really try to buy photography books. In some ways I was more fascinated by the machines than the work at first. Once I had had the college experience I would buy photography (or camera) books. John Shaw and Galen Rowell are probably my biggest heroes, though Ansel Adams was in there too. I just was never a good darkroom man and I couldn't imagine driving around with a view camera like Adams though. Too adventurous for me. Most of my books today are on obscure antique cameras (and some not so obscure).Those don't INSPIRE me, but they're fun to read.

A good novel, especially one that entails strong literary visuals, can also be helpful in inspiring photos and image-making if not so much how to set a camera and get a good exposure. Once the camera use is internalized to a good degree, the fun of creating photos, seeing a world, and developing a visual language and inspired view can really take hold. Steinbeck is great. Dickens! Of course, a lot of poetry. Kerouac, Eudora Welty, Pat Conroy, Charles Bukowski for the darker side. And, of course, Sontag’s On Photography, as much for what she’s right about as for how much you can argue with her. She energizes the brain and imagination even when she’s wrong. Weston’s Daybooks.

 

Anyway, big difference, though lots of overlap, between cameras and photography. Hand in hand, not either/or.

 

And, books on painting! Definitely read about painting - visual styles, ways of seeing, learning to see and expand vision, creation of image, perspective, depth, texture, color, composition, subject, influence, inspiration . . .

Edited October 4, 2018 by The Shadow

Yes, I have learned a lot from photography books and other sources such as the internet, reading what other photographers were teaching, seminars through the Guild, graphic arts classes in high school in the 70`s, and years of experimenting with lenses and light.

To my previous "no", I'll add that after a year or two of serious photography I had a pretty good library. Dang, all gone now except for about 15 of the Kodak booklets.

I attribute much of my early photo education to magazines - Popular Photography (before it was 'taken over' by the Modern Photography editorial staff), and Petersen's Photographic. That was in the early 1970's. I also had a number of Kodak books that were helpful, but they were a bit outdated.

 

Later, I joined a camera club and learned an awful lot about composition from competition with other photographers.

 

Later still, I discovered the photography program at Peters Valley Craft Center in Layton, NJ. I took courses there for many years on everything from darkroom work, to zone system, to style and photographic motivation. Frankly, the workshops at Peters Valley were the most important in my development as a photographer.

Current merit badge requirements are here:

 

Photography - MeritBadgeDotOrg

 

I got mine about 1972. The picture looks about right.

(Sometimes they change the badge when they change requirements.)

 

It looks like the requirements have been updated for digital, but otherwise

are about the same.

 

I think I had a Popular Photography subscription around then, too.

 

I don't know that I learned anything specific from it, though.