The Books I Recommend

I already mentioned the first equipment purchases that helped me get started with my new Nikon D40, and I also wrote about my favorite podcasts and photo web-sites. I should also mention another excellent resource that I found, the books.

When I decided to get more serious about my photography, I was living in a college town and there were no classes that were offered nearby. However, I knew that there must be a market of photography books that talk about the equipment and software, and there sure is. I quickly ordered bunch of them, then ordered more , and finally, checked out a huge stack at a local library.

After reading or skimming through many of them (as you may imagine, there is a lot of junk out there), I found the following to be the most helpful.

The Digital Photography Book, by Scott Kelby. Though very basic and doesn't go into a lot of technical details some other books go into, this popular book teaches essential concepts and principles anyone owning DSLR should know. Scott covers both camera settings, as well as photo situations and what you should do with it. After reading several other books that are much more technical, I found myself going back to this book again and again to refresh my memory. Oh yeah, and Scott's humor also takes some getting used to.

The Adobe Photoshop Lightroom Book for Digital Photographers, by Scott Kelby. Again, in his own unique style that appeals to us, the rookies, Scott covers the best software on the market for organizing and quickly processing your photos. He also provides updates to his books when Adobe releases upgrades for the Lightroom.

The Photoshop CS3 Book For Digital Photographers, by Scott Kelby. Again, if you want to learn Adobe Photoshop software, I have yet to find a better way to do it.

Skin: The Complete Guide to Digitally Lighting, Photographing, and Retouching Faces and Bodies, by Lee Varis. If you like shooting people, and you want to make their skin look natural and attractive (something that's almost impossible to do without additional post processing), this book will teach you many ways of doing it.

Photoshop LAB Color: The Canyon Conundrum and Other Adventures in the Most Powerful Colorspace , by Dan Margulis. If you like working with color, and you use Photoshop, this is another a-must-have book. Lab color space is powerful, and this book will change your approach to color work.

Ansel Adams, an autobiography. Of course, he's an artist who changed the course of photography entirely, but besides telling his story, Ansel discusses the why of photography and his view this kind of art. In fact, it was him who made sure that the world accepted photography as art. It'll surely make you think a lot more philosophically about what you're doing with a camera.