The first review run on The First 10,000 was of a photographers’ handbook first published 70 years before. Like that book, Robert Leverant’s Zen in the Art of Photography is an oldie (first published in 1969), but this one doesn’t show its age in the least. It’s a short book that you could probably get through very quickly. I’m going

Some time ago in this space in the course of reviewing one of Tom Ang’s many introductions to photography, I noted that Ang had covered the same ground, albeit with minor variations, several times before. Upon reading Miriam Leuchter’s Take Your Best Shot: Essential Tips & Tricks for Shooting Amazing Photos, I realized that the issue is by no means

Fuji turned a lot of heads last year with the introduction of the X100, a stylish, retro-looking compactish APS-C camera that was about the last thing anyone expected from a company widely viewed as a perpetual also-ran. Despite some quirks (such as a fixed 35mm lens, which some shooters found a bit too limiting) and issues (not least of which

I’m a researcher. Not by trade, mind you, just out of habit. If there’s something I like, I learn more. If there’s something about which I’m curious, I find out what I can about it. And if I’m going to spend my hard-earned money on it, you can bet your hard-earned money that I’m going to do my homework first.

Since I seem to be in the habit of simplifying things to an almost silly degree, let me at least be consistent. If we’re going to take photography down to its barest essentials, it comes down to framing a subject (composition) and getting that subject to look the way we want it to in our photographic medium of choice (exposure).

We’d all love our photos to come out of the camera perfect from the moment we’ve pressed the shutter down. While that will happen every so often, it’s generally the exception that proves the rule. More often, we look at the photo and realize the exposure’s just a little off, something’s in the frame that shouldn’t be, or we feel