If I tell you by reading a book will turn you from an amateur to a professional, I'm lying. However, the Book has helped me to transform from a tourist on photography to a serious amateur. Meeting frustrations? Of course! I have written to Lee Frost to express thanks on what I have learnt from him, he didn't even give an acknowledgement note. I sent that letter with my first serious project, about 20 pictures, costing me HKD400 (c.USD51.00) mail charges and he did not reply. I have tried to convince myself that I have sent to the wrong address (Argentum Publishing, UK). Another frustration is here. I have bought the book at HKD400 while the listed price is only GBP19.99. This is a penalty for buying from local bookstores in non-English speaking countries instead of via amazon.com. Anyway, this book has given me pleasure many times beyond the copper I have spent.Now, let's go back to the Book. I'm more a reader than a photographer and I have read a number of books, including some written by Lee Frost, but no other books have prompted me into action like the Book. I have taken pictures for many years with quite a few borrowed cameras and eventually I bought my first camera (Nikon F-70) six years ago in 1995 when my daughter was born. That camera was originally intended to take snapshots of her and some pictures as a tourist. However, after carefully studying the Book and more importantly, trying to practise what Lee Frost has taught in the book, the processing shop I used for my first serious project (a professional laboratory which is expensive to an amateur) is still hanging one of my landscape pictures at the reception counter (for more than two years now).
The first part of the Book is called a Gallery section featuring ten of Lee's landscape images. The construst Lee has used is very practical, ie, you can use. Firstly, the location: what features on that landscape will make a beautiful picture difficult. Then, about the time when you are trying to take a picture and how the sun's angle will affect the image and colour. Subtle lighting differences may not be noticed by careless naked eyes but to a photographer, a slight change in incidental lighting will change the look of that landscape. Then Lee explains what techniques he has applied to the picture and what equipment he has used? Lee will tell you how he has choosen between 3-D Matrix, spot metering and incidental metering for that picture. He will also tell you why he has used graduated filters or a polariser on that picture. If you follow Lee's recommendation on the film he likes or the filters he favoured, you will not regret.
I have followed the things I have learnt from Lee's Gallery section in a four-day section during which I have taken 266 pictures - I'm surprised how much my pictures have improved.
The second half of the Book is called "Technical Section". The topics is generally covered by most "weekend guides" or "the complete guide" but I suspect such writers are copying from the dictionary on sophisticated topics (to an amateur), for instance, "hyperfocal focusing", "reciprocity effect", "how the exposure compensation function of your camera may help" and "the use of polariser and graduated filters". What Lee Frost has done is to guide a layman throughout so that this laymen, provided that he or she has put efforts in practising rather than mere reading, can actually apply such concepts when taking pictures.
It's a pity that the book is out of stock at the time of writing but I am glad to learn from the on-line reviews that Lee Frost's other book, "The Complete Guide to Night and Low-light Photography", has been well-received. I have just ordered this book minutes ago via amazon.com.
Not all Lee Frost's books I have read are good but this one has been very helpful to me. On the other hand, if you want to proceed from a "craftsman" to an "artist", you may have to try something else.
