The Photographer's Mind: Creative Thinking for Better Digital Photos

Michael Freeman is a genius of both photography and teaching. His books are works of art in there own right that can be savored over and over again for the pictures alone. However, if you can stop looking at the pictures long enough to read the books you can learn some amazing things. Michael is a prolific writer and I have many of his books but my three favorite are The Photographer's Eye: Composition and Design for Better Digital Photos, Michael Freeman's Perfect Exposure: The Professional's Guide to Capturing Perfect Digital Photographs, and this one. Each title perfectly captures what the books are about. If you want to learn more about composition then get the Photographer's Eye. Want to learn about Exposure, get Perfect Exposure. Want to learn more about composition and creative thinking, then get this book.This book is for the beginner and expert alike. However, it does assume a level of competence with a camera. You don't have to be an expert, you just need to know how to make your camera do what you want. So if you are looking for a book that tells you what to do then look elsewhere. This books are about thinking and in particular teaches you what to think about for advanced composition and creative thinking.People often get too wrapped around the axel about gear. If only they had a faster camera or more mega pixels or higher ISO, then they would be taking masterpieces. That could not be further from the truth. The cold hard truth is the best and fastest way to take better pictures is to one, take lots of pictures. A way to supercharge your learning in that process is to look at and study beautiful art and pictures. This book not only shows you amazing photos, it also analyzes the photos and explains why they are amazing photos and what he was thinking.I recommend all 3 of these books as masterpieces you will treasure and will, with practice, accelerate your learning process for taking great pictures.

This is a really important book. Most photography books are solely concerned with cameras and lenses, but this book focuses (pun intended) on the psychology of the way images are interpreted and understood by people, which I think is far more important than equipment. The book is beautifully written and filled with gorgeous photographs illustrating the photographic and artistic concepts explained within. Photography has become bigger than ever before, and with the affordability of high-quality DSLRs and the image-sharing world of social media, everyone is a photographer today. In and of itself that is not a bad thing since Photography as a medium of documenting life as well as a medium for creative self-expression should be available to everyone. The problem, I feel, is that we've become too obsessed with technology, and we've forgotten that understanding the psychology and philosophy involved in all visual art is of paramount importance in creating images. Most books and YouTube videos are dedicated to catering to the consumer mentality. Everyone wants the newest, most expensive cameras with the most bells and whistles and highest megapixel counts, not realizing that you can take a great photograph with ANY camera, even point and shoot cameras and mobile phones. But the way to do that is to understand the elements of a good photograph and to think deeply about your compositions. That's where a book like this comes in. The author also wrote another book entitled The Photographer's Eye, which is equally a great book and also deals with the psychology of image making. Both books should be on the bookshelf of any serious photographer or artist.

Having recently purchased and read both The Photographer's Eye and The Photographer's Mind by Michael Freeman, I will review both. Eye is easily the most helpful book I've read on photographic composition, discussing in clear terms framing, design basics, graphics, light and color, intent, and process. What I found especially helpful was the section on gestalt theory. While I have read about gestalt theory before, I have not found it quite so clearly discussed as here. Eye is a book to return to again and again.Mind, though it falters slightly near the end, for the most part maintains the same high level of quality as Eye in discussing "intent" and "style." Especially interesting is the section on beauty and the sublime ("Dead Monsters"), which dips into classical aesthetic theory going back to Burke, Kant, and Addison. In a book geared for the practitioner, such theorizing can easily go too far, but that is not the case here. In fact I could have done with a bit more classical theory. Even if one chooses to eschew classical principles, I believe it is better to do so knowledgeably than ignorantly. The cataloguing of styles is helpful. I found that I already use a number of styles in my photography, but I can now do so with greater awareness and confidence. I appreciated the web links throughout the book and the references to various photographers whose styles are discussed.I can highly recommend both books to amateur and advanced amateur photographers.