If you are a successful photographer secure in you image making there’s no need to turn to “Rick Sammon’s Exploring the Light: Making the Very Best In-Camera Exposures.” If however, you need help with your process, your composition, your use of natural and strobe light, not to mention critical fundamentals regarding exposure, this book is a fantastic, easy and enlightening read.

“Exploring the Light” is also a perfect book to recommend to the would-be photographers or amateurs you encounter who need a good, helping hand, but that find that most basic photography how-to books fall short. The reason most basic photography books fall short is because they miss critical fundamentals or over-explain over-rated technical fine-points.

A respected photographic educator, Rick Sammon has written more than twenty books and scores of articles as well as leading classes to interesting travel destinations. So it should be no surprise that he has honed his ability to impart information succinctly. Still, that he does it so well in so few pages to such great effect is incredibly noteworthy.

Of particular note in “Exploring the Light” is that Sammon does not rehash the now-old digital versus film issues. He simply proceeds as if photography is photography, and that photography is digital, which it is.

Another stunning aspect of “Exploring the Light” is how Sammon – without belaboring the point – deals with “exposure” on a holistic level. By this I mean that Sammon does not deal merely with the technical aspects of controlling how much light hits the sensor. For Sammon, exposure is as much about successful camera angles – and how to find and assess such angles – as it is about dialing down exposure to ensure that an image’s histogram is healthy, with no dangerously blow-out highlights.

Also notable in “Exploring the Light” is that, unlike most how-to books, the body text and the image captions are basically one, fluidly readable text. There are basic technical notes under most images (except where he excludes them to help readers focus on artistic content, a nice touch) but the main text really is the captions. This allows the book to be read as if one were watching the author deliver an engaging, nicely-timed, logically-progressive speech while projecting relevant sample images up on the screen.

I had the opportunity to see Sammon do just this at 2007 PhotoPlus in New York, and I was impressed by his accessible and inspiring style. It is this style that he captures in “Exploring the Light” with satisfying success.

As expected, the least valuable aspect of the book are the final, brief chapters on Photoshop techniques, with certain techniques outdated. However, even though Sammon points out that half of his image-making process is takes place in-camera with the other half in Photoshop (he’s hardly a “straight” photographer), the outdated aspect of his Photoshop techniques is no great shortcoming.

As the title indicates, “Exploring the Light” aims to focus on the in-camera aspect of image making. Just as important, Sammon still provides plenty of suggestions of what photographers will want to accomplish in postproduction. And his insights about this are just as important as specific how-tos.

Another final benefit to “Exploring the Light” is that the book focuses on the types of photography that 99% of non-pros are interested in: people, travel, landscape and nature. So if you encounter a dSLR-wielding photographer who wants a clear, immensely helpful book for improving their vision and their images, I recommend you recommend “Exploring the Light” without the slightest hesitation.

Tags: Basic Techniques, Book Review, Educational, How-To, In-Camera Techniques, Rick Sammon, Rick Sammon’s Exploring the Light