Almost what you want on a Photography of Yosemite Book
Written: Jun 01 '08 (Updated Jun 01 '08)
Product Rating:
Pros: Excellent maps and details on how to get to the best shots and when.
Cons: Some wasted space on technique. Organization could be improved.
The Bottom Line: This is an appetite whetter with excellent maps. It suffers from the addition of unneeded content and some organizational problems. Overall it is OK.
rorsteven's Full Review: Michael Frye - The Photographer's Guide to Yosemit...
I purchased this book for $8.95 through Amazon because I am planning a several day photo excursion in Yosemite. A quick perusal of the introductory section gives the appearance of a well organized book. In addition there are copious attractive photos through out the book.
Interspersed with the various maps and descriptions and photos are sections addressing photographic techniques: Using Filters, Lighting, Composition, Choosing Film, Exposure, Depth of Field. While some of these items are well directed to the unique needs of Yosemite photography others are given scant attention and detract from what I think is the focus of the book. Note that the book is titled "The PHOTOGRAPHER's Guide to Yosemite" rather than "The Guide to Photographing Yosemite" which is the book I wanted.
Another problem I have with the book is that the organization is good, but the navigability of it is not so good. There are five major sections with well marked, numbered maps:
Yosemite Valley
Merced River Canyon
Wawona and Glacier Point Road
The Tioga Road
Mono Lake and the Eastern Sierras
While the last chapter addresses an area that is not in Yosemite proper, it is a good call to put this in the book as it is a phenomenally interesting area photographically.
The problem is that the photography techniques chapters are interspersed and it is difficult to find any one section except by going to the Table of Contents and then going page by page. There is no index. And while it might seem like a good thing to have the maps of each section where the descriptions start in the book for each, actually it is harder to find the maps because you never know how far back you have to turn. Manually adding tabs would help. As would putting all of the maps together at the front or back of the book. In fact, I'd have preferred that all of the maps and location descriptions be kept together and all of the technique items be segregated into their own sections or dropped from the book.
The paper of the book is also heavier (thicker) than usual so turning pages is a bit harder to do than I'd like. The book as a whole is surprisingly heavy for the little handbook it appears to be. I don't think I'd take it in my backpack on a long hike.
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