Which 1-2 books would you recommend as the best to read/study to improve one's fundamentals for B&W photography? I am most interested in information on lighting, composition, and exposure; at this point I am not interested in more darkroom related information. Said another way, I want to focus on the process up to the release of the shutter. Thanks in advance for your suggestions.

-- Chris Werner (cbwerner@att.net), October 15, 1999

Answers

1) Any of the Hedgecoe(sp?) books to show you how; 2) Edward Weston's "Daybooks" to show you why. Mitch

-- Bill Mitchell (bmitch@home.com), October 15, 1999.

The Negative by Adams or any of the Freeman Patterson books

-- Sean yates (yatescats@yahoo.com), October 16, 1999.

I'm awfully partial to the books by David Vestal. Check out bibliofind web page http://www.bibliofind.com for exact titles. I know of two of them, and I'm only intimately familiar with the one which has the title addressing issues of enlarging black & white shots.

Vestal, of course, is the guy who writes the terrific column "Vestal at Large" for Photo Techniques magazine.

Vestal's book that I referred to is definitely one to borrow from a library. After reading a library copy I decided to buy one for myself but couldn't find one for under $100 (it originally sold for around $20). So I guess a lot of folks agree with its excellence.

The book goes way beyond the narrow subject of enlargement. You'll like it, I'm sure. Unless, perhaps, you are a zone system kind of guy, then you may prefer Adams. Vestal is a lot more intuitive than Adams.

Good luck and have fun.

-- Paul Arnold (osprey@bmt.net), November 16, 1999.