Take Your Best Shot: Essential Tips & Tricks for Shooting Amazing Photos

Taking amazing pictures is getting easier and easier with the advances in digital photography. In "Take Your Best Shot," the first book in this series with Popular Photography, our expert writers and photographers showed how to capture amazing images in the moment, and how to set up a breath-taking shot.
This book takes image-making to the next level, showing how to create a wide range of photo effects, from the subtle (adjusting the color in a picture to create a different mood) to the artistic (compositions merging several photos to dramatic effect) to the downright amazing (how to photograph yourself levitating . . . it's easier than you think!)
Competition titles either treat image-manipulation and trick shots as an afterthought, or concentrate solely on specific software products and techniques. This book does nothing but show such insider hints--and proves that you don't have to be a Photoshop whiz--or even own Photoshop--to pull off the fantastic feats in this book.
Set-ups and techniques are described in detail, with easy-to-understand illustrations and diagrams, and a wealth of beautifully inspirational photography. Beginners will learn ways to quickly move into new realms of expertise, and even old pros will pick up some new tricks. Anyone who has ever looked at an amazing composition or a skillful composite and said, "How did they do that?" will find this book irresistible.
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Photography and the Art of Seeing: A Visual Perception Workshop for Film and Digital Photography

" "Patterson's superb color shots, as well as his explanation of his unique approach to picture-taking, are sure to inspire you to explore fresh avenues in your own photography." "
-- The Globe and Mail
The second book in Freeman Patterson's internationally acclaimed series of instructional books on photography and visual design, "Photography and the Art of Seeing" has now been updated and expanded to include technical guidelines adapted for both digital and film photographers. The jargon-free text provides techniques and innovative exercises for breaking with traditional concepts of design, enabling the photographer to develop a keen awareness of subject matter and a direction for composing the picture.
"Photography and the Art of Seeing" also offers a workshop for all visual artists that includes lessons on the fundamentals of perception and overcoming obstacles in their work.
This edition features several never-before-published photographs from Freeman Patterson's personal collection and extended captions that include valuable technical information and personal commentary.
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The Five C's of Cinematography: Motion Picture Filming Techniques

• The Five C's of Cinematography is one of the three most important books on cinematic technique ever published -- American Cinematographer

• Mr. Mascelli provides the attentive reader with the equivalent of a complete course in filmmaking. -- New York Times

The Five C's is the most widely respected book on cinematography ever published. With the aid of hundreds of photographs and diagrams, it clearly and concisely presents all of the essential concepts and techniques of motion picture camera work.

The five C's, and some of the related subjects this book covers, are:

• Camera Angles -- Objective, Subjective, Point-of-View, Subject Size, Subject Angle, Camera Height

• Continuity -- Cinematic Time and Space, Filming Action, Master Scenes, Screen Direction, Transitional Devices

• Cutting -- Types of Editing, Cross-Cutting, Cutting on Action

• Close-ups -- Over-the-Shoulder, Cut-in, Cutaway

• Composition -- Compositional Rules, Compositional Language, Types of Balance, Attracting or Switching the Center of Interest.

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Pantone: The Twentieth Century in Color

Pantone, the worldwide color authority, invites you on a rich visual tour of 100 transformative years. From the Pale Gold (15-0927 TPX) and Almost Mauve (12-2103 TPX) of the 1900 Universal Exposition in Paris to the Rust (18-1248 TPX) and Midnight Navy (19-4110 TPX) of the countdown to the Millennium, the 20th century brimmed with color. Longtime Pantone collaborators and color gurus Leatrice Eiseman and Keith Recker identify more than 200 touchstone works of art, products, decor, and fashion, and carefully match them with 80 different official PANTONE color palettes to reveal the trends, radical shifts, and resurgences of various hues. This vibrant volume takes the social temperature of our recent history with the panache that is uniquely Pantone.
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Caravaggio: A Life Sacred and Profane

The life of Michelangelo Merisi, known as Caravaggio (15711610), writes British art critic Graham-Dixon in this masterful biography, was like his art: "a series of lightning flashes in the darkest of nights." Graham-Dixon's briskly and elegantly composed study thoroughly contextualizing the artist's early life in the town of Caravaggio and in Milan, a city dominated by Archbishop Carlo Borromeo, whose fearsome doctrine of mass repentance and the selective role of visual spectacle influenced Caravaggio. By the time the artist left Milan for Rome, he had decided to become an artist. The author then chronicles Caravaggio's artistic success in Rome, where, at the age of 24, he found patronage by Cardinal del Monte. He created many masterpieces there, but the rejection of The Death of the Virgin by its ecclesiastical commissioners, the author argues, may have prompted Caravaggio to commit murder. He fled to Naples, then to Malta; he died at age 38, after a troubled and "disordered" life. That Graham-Dixon (Michelangelo and the Sistine Chapel) took a decade to research and write this insightful and fascinating book shows in the depth of its research, the skillfulness of its historical and artistic analysis, and the deft fluidity with which it is expressed. This is a rare tour-de-force.
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Alexander McQueen: Savage Beauty

"The exhibition, organized by The Costume Institute, will celebrate the late Alexander McQueen's extraordinary contributions to fashion. From his postgraduate collection of 1992 to his final runway presentation which took place after his death in February 2010, Mr. McQueen challenged and expanded the understanding of fashion beyond utility to a conceptual expression of culture, politics, and identity. His iconic designs constitute the work of an artist whose medium of expression was fashion. Approximately one hundred examples will be on view, including signature designs such as the bumster trouser, the kimono jacket, and the Origami frock coat, as well as pieces reflecting the exaggerated silhouettes of the 1860s, 1880s, 1890s, and 1950s that he crafted into contemporary silhouettes transmitting romantic narratives. Technical ingenuity imbued his designs with an innovative sensibility that kept him at fashion's vanguard." -- MMA website.
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An American Experiment: George Bellows and the Ashcan Painters

In the first decades of the 20th century, George Bellows and other painters of the Ashcan School, a loosely connected group of gritty, urban realists, created images of the city from street level. Following older artist Robert Henri's insistence that artists should make "pictures from life," the Ashcanners renounced the polished academic style taught in art schools of the time. Instead they practiced a more urgent manner working with bold, highly saturated color, seeking to catch the ebb and flow of life in urban America. Some of them, particularly Bellows, also produced vivid landscapes and portraits.
This book introduces the artists of the Ashcan School and the key characteristics and themes of their work. Detailed commentaries are provided for twelve significant paintings by George Bellows, William Glackens, Robert Henri, George Luks, and John Sloan, ranging from depictions of the metropolitan throng to Bellows's vivid seascapes. In their visual contemplation of early-20th-century America, these artists offer deep insights into the nature of ordinary life not only in their time but also in our own.
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