Black & White Photography in the Digital Age

Judging from Amazon readers’ reviews, it appears that Tony Worobiec and Ray Spence consistently author high-quality books.  Their 144 page collaborative work, Black & White Photography in the Digital Age (May 15, 2007), similarly rates high with reviewers.  Given that, I decided to check the book out for myself.

After reading the book through, my impression is that the authors had three major objectives.  The first objective was to provide a clear overview of black and white photography, from the point of image capture all the way through to presentation.  Though there are occasional ancillary discussions, such as creating text in clouds, on a whole the authors succeeded in this objective.  The book is well written, easy to read, engaging, and it presents the material in a natural progression.

The second objective was directed at digital photographers with no prior black and white film processing experience.  For this set of readers, the authors not only describe each unique black and white film processing technique, such as dual toning, Solarization, and Cyanotype, but they also illustrate how to create their digital equivalents.

The final objective was to assist professional film photographers.  For them, the book demonstrates how their film processing techniques are readily transferable to the digital post-processing world. 

Likes:

• The book has a high-quality look and feel.
• The authors present a lot of useful information in a single, highly readable volume.
• There is good coverage of all major black and white photography topics.
• The photos do a good job of illustrating the points in the text.
• It’s an easy read, that is, easily understood even by a beginner.

Dislikes:

• None major

It’s obvious that when it comes to black and white photography, the authors possess a large amount of practical experience, both film and digital.  Whether or not it is worth your time however to buy and read this book depends upon your interests.  Do you have a love for black and white photography?  Are you interested in fully understanding and utilizing all that black and white photography offers?  If yes, then this book would be a valuable addition to your collection.  If not, I’d pass on this book, unless you just like reading about photography.