Archive for Book Reviews

Turning the Page

Posted: December 14th, 2011

[by Selina Maitreya] As I wrote the title for this blog post, I realized that many of you are not turning pages you are “Kindling “your info these days. Regardless of the delivery, here are books that I suggest you consider owning. Do The Work – Stephen Pressfield A great follow up to The War [...]

The Lean Startup

Posted: December 13th, 2011

[by Jay Kinghorn] Like many businesses, our company is in the midst of adapting to a changing world by finding new ways we can support our clients and new avenues for income. One of the challenges we face is pinpointing which of the many ideas we’ve explored are the best opportunities with which to [...]

A Few of My Favorite (Non-Fiction) Books

Posted: December 12th, 2011

[by Barry Schwartz] James Taylor – Timothy White. As a long time fan (I saw the original Troubadour shows with Carol King in 1970), seeing how an artist can maintain the quality of their work and continue to grow as an artist for a real, real long time provides a perspective I find more than [...]

Books to Get You Going

Posted: July 1st, 2011

[by Judy Herrmann] Those lazy hazy days of summer yearn to lure you into complacency. C’mon, they whisper, soft and low, lie out by the pool, read a trashy novel or two, relaaaaaax. And before you were self-employed…Aaah, those were the days and that was the life. Now, though, we are on, 24/7, 365. So [...]

My Summer Reading List for People Adding Video to their Workflow

Posted: June 30th, 2011

[by Richard Harrington] I am often asked by photographers which books I recommend to learn video. There are several, but I wanted to offer you my top choices that I think are most helpful. The links will take you to Amazon where you can read reviews and the publisher’s description as well. The Visual Story, [...]

The Creative Process Illustrated

Posted: June 29th, 2011

[by Charles Gupton] Would you like to have the chance to get a peek into the process of some of the most respected creative minds in the advertising business today? In the book, The Creative Process Illustrated: How Advertising’s Big Ideas are Born, you’ll have that opportunity. The authors approached nearly 300 top creative directors, [...]

Summer reading for the type-A personality

Posted: June 28th, 2011

As an overachiever who doesn’t do well with heat, I like my summer reading breezy, but not mindless (I reserve that for air travel.) For me, that means stuff that I can dip into easily a bit at a time and still learn from — think “bathroom reading”, only useful. The Personal MBA (by Josh [...]

Summer Reading

Posted: June 27th, 2011

[by Sean Kernan] A great way to get inspired and to exercise your imaginative vision is to slip outside photography altogether. Which is why I recently disappeared into Isaac Babel’s Red Cavalry short stories for a few weeks. I lived in the grind and the confusion and the human-ness of partisan warfare. The experience raised [...]

Think Like Your Customer

Posted: September 22nd, 2010

[by Todd Joyce] There are a lot of resources out there on business that unless it’s about a photography business, we don’t seem to want to pick it up… I have news for you. If you’re not treating your business like a business, then you’ll likely be out of business soon. There’s a great book [...]

Liber Liberum Aperit (one book opens another)

Posted: July 2nd, 2010

[by Sean Kernan] I’ve been riding a long slow curve from the activity of making photographs through the question of why I pursue it so hard, visiting the question of how we create, and winding up (for now) at the question of why we create in life-size our versions of how everything should be, using [...]

My Number One Reading Recommendation

Posted: July 1st, 2010

[by Gail Mooney] #1 Reading recommendation: From Still to Motion by Richard Harrington – Peachpit Press Harrington has written 27 books on everything from Photoshop tips to Final Cut Pro and other software applications. In his current book “From Still to Motion” he documents a field case study creating a video with the hybrid camera [...]

Summer Reading List

Posted: June 30th, 2010

[by Jay Kinghorn] There’s no doubt that the business landscape is tough for photographers right now. Still, every day, green shoots are appearing in the publishing and advertising industries that will allow well-positioned and technologically savvy photographers to make and impact (and a good living) as the recession subsides. Here are a few books I’ve [...]

Our Data, Our Selves

Posted: June 29th, 2010

[by Judy Herrmann] Earlier this year, ASMP President, Richard Kelly, suggested I read Ken Auletta’s book, Googled: The End of the World as We Know It. Thought-provoking and packed with facts, quotes and well-researched information – I actually pulled out a highlighter pen for the first time in years – it is so well-written and [...]

Big Changes can Happen while Reading on Long Summer Days

Posted: June 28th, 2010

[by Carolyn Potts] Instead of a best-selling mystery or a trashy summer novel, pack one of these into your beach bag and you’ll have more than a tan when you’re done. You’ll end up with some different perspectives regarding where business is headed–and how you fit in. I think it’s essential for any small business owner [...]

I Highly Recommend “Free, The Future of a Radical Price” by Chris Anderson

Posted: August 24th, 2009

Chris Anderson’s new book is a provocative look at the growing economy of free. I know many of you may roll your eyes at the thought that “free” is our new competition, but do not judge this book by it’s title. Anderson provides a careful investigation outlining the history and future of this economic driver, [...]

Vision And Art: The Biology of Seeing

Posted: July 24th, 2009

Many of the corrections we make to photos, burning and dodging, and adjusting contrast or saturation, are designed to exploit quirks in our visual system. In Vision And Art: The Biology of Seeing by Margaret Livingstone, you’ll learn the biological and physiological foundations behind image sharpening, selective focus, contrast and the rule of thirds. This [...]

Summer Book : TRIBES by Seth Godin

Posted: July 23rd, 2009

It is summer 2009 and while some of us are packing the car for vacations to the sea shore or the mountains, many of us are choosing to “staycation”, or rather staying close to home or taking day trips to area attractions. Today’s economy is forcing us to re-evaluate, not just the family summer vacation [...]

The Lean Forward Moment: Create Compelling Stories for Film, TV and the Web

Posted: July 21st, 2009

If you’ve been following Gail Mooney’s multimedia and video posts and are beginning to experiment with video, you’ve found that video and multimedia require different approaches than still photography. The pacing of cuts, pans or zooms through the frame, or edits in a timeline are foreign concepts to photographers. In The Lean Forward Moment, Norman [...]

Book Review Week

Posted: July 20th, 2009

I love reading biographies and these three very different stories are some of my favorites. Limelight is a memoir by Helen Gee and traces her history opening this country’s first photography gallery. If you love photography and photographers, you will enjoy this immensely. It is a charming tale of Greenwich Village and the coming of [...]

This DAM Stuff Is Important

Posted: June 4th, 2009

Managing your digital images can be a daunting task. Imagine a world where you can retrieve a specific image for a client in seconds or pull up everything you photographed on a specific theme instantly. You will not only save time, but you will improve the quality of your customer service, your marketing materials or [...]

Don’t Ignore This Book Review

Posted: May 1st, 2009

The second edition of Tom Reilly’s Value Added Selling: how to sell more profitably, confidently, and professionally by completing of value, not price (McGraw-Hill ISBN: 0-0714088-19, 256 pages) boasts 70-percent new content from the first edition. I was given my copy by a fellow airline passenger who had finished it while on a flight we [...]

“Marketing Management is now Tribal Leadership” Seth Godin

Posted: April 29th, 2009

If you haven’t yet read TRIBES - We need you to lead us by Seth Godin, today is the day to do just that, at 160 pages it is easily a weekend read. The basic tribe concept is that groups of people form tribes around a person or an idea or a product to create [...]