cover image The Creative Monochrome Image: How to Excel at Black & White Photography

The Creative Monochrome Image: How to Excel at Black & White Photography

David Chamberlain. Blandford, $19.95 (192pp) ISBN 978-0-7137-1652-8

The majority of this book is devoted to an exhibit of British photographer Chamberlain's own work. In this Folio Section, the author favors studies of nudes and some carefully considered special techniques. Each photograph is also accompanied by a description; one includes the author's cheerful admission that ""the model declared it was the best photograph he had ever seen of himself . . . !'' This cloying tone saturates the entire text, making the workmanlike chapters on equipment, the studio and darkroom methods a chore to read. Although there is always something to learn from an accomplished photographer's selection of his favorite picturesand this volumes offers some well-organized information about black-and-white photography for the serious amateureven admirers of Chamberlain's work must concede that a kinder and more conscientious editor would have helped the author crop the text. (October 1)