Book seventeen: The Art of Photography: An Approach to Personal Expression by Bruce Barnbaum

This was a slog, not because it isn't good but because it's pretty dense and spends a lot of time discussing film. Since I no longer work with that, I was less motivated to go through the material. I did, however, find some takeaways:

1. prints do not need to have pure white and pure black to work
2. try to achieve middles grays that glow as middle silvers
3. elements of composition: light, color, contrast and tone, line, form, pattern, balance, movement, positive/negative space, texture, camera position, focal length, depth of field, shutter speed
4. when a scene grabs you, investigate the scene before shooting
5. "you're first drawn to any scene because of the objects, but once you grab the camera, you must stop thinking in terms of objects, and concentrate on light"
6. "Choose any great photographer - let's say Ansel Adams - and ask yourself how many truly great photographs he produced in his lifetime (50+ years of photography) 50? 100? 200? Maybe even more. But that is about four per year at best." Holy schnikes. Perhaps I need to lower my expectations.

17 down plus 35 and volume 1 of the Norton Anthology of English Literature to go.