Photographic Composition: A Visual Guide

by Richard D. Zakia, David A. Page

"Those of you who follow this blog know that Dr. Richard Zakia, former RIT professor, is one of my all time favorite photo gurus. We send each other pictures. We talk about looking into pictures - and not just looking at them. Big difference.. Dr. Richard Zakia, a.k.a. Dick, is the co-author, along with David Page, of Photographic Composition: A Visual Guide. These two dudes are also two of my favorite people."---Rick Sammon's blog

"Covers all the tips needed to help photographers construct their own unique, outstanding images and is an outstanding 'must' for any collection."--CA Bookwatch

Genres: Photography, Nonfiction, Art

304 pages, Kindle Edition

First published October 8, 2010

Reviews

[Online Eccentric Librarian · Rating 2 out of 5]

More reviews (and no fluff) on the blog http://surrealtalvi.wordpress.com/

This book feels like a text book - the information providing inside is complete, thorough, and informative. But slogging through the bland 'snapshot' like photos and monotonous dry text within is almost like going through someone's family scrapbooks from the 1970s. Except, instead of descriptions of the pictures, you get to have them broken down into compositional rules. Which is a shame since it is clear the instructor....er..author is very knowledgeable.

It's all in there, just very basic. It's hard to compare a book like this, which has a very 1970s photography book feel (full of the great 'honest' lifestyle type of influences) and feels a very much outdated compared to a very modern compositional book like "The Photographer's Mind".

[Oleksiy Chapay · Rating 4 out of 5]

Lucky me. I came to the bookstore and I was just searching by word "composition". I found this one and bought without any thinking. And, just I said before, lucky me. Good organized, simple compilation of composition rules. With famous photographers' quotes, homework etc. Very useful book.
P.S. my rating is 4. Because of Zakia's photos. Most of them... eh... you know...

[Zhifei Ge · Rating 5 out of 5]

Like the simplicity.

[Kambizdirakvand · Rating 4 out of 5]

Useful book with full of exercises and samples which is very useful for beginners.
I think It would be better book if it contained more analysis on famous photographers pictures.

[Stephen Rainey]

Can tell that they do not get out much as they identified the Sydney opera house as being in Melbourne