I need your help!
If everything goes according to plans, the eBook Store will be open for business next Tuesday, October 14th! Anyone visiting the bookstore will be able, with a special code, to down load the book, 7 Steps! It will allow you to get acquainted with my style of eBooks at no cost!!!!
7 Steps For Taking It To the Next Level!
This book is a 127 page plan to get through the biggest blocks to becoming a far better photographer. Lots of illustrating images and the most important key point to help you accomplish your task.
The first nine books includes the Foundational Series of six books for beginners and intermediates.
The Foundational Series includes: Volume 1. The Camera Controls (72 pages), Volume 2. The Eye Seeks: Brightness Sharpness & Warmth (49 Pages), Volume 3. Exposure Exposed (81 pages), Volume 4. Light (116 pages), Volume 5. The Principles of Composition (125 pages), Volume 6. The Four Things You Need in a Great Image (65 pages).
Three additional books are also in the store; Building a System For Field Use, The FREE 7 Steps book, and Using Digital Technology to Have Fun (all about the fun things you can do with post processing filters and Monochrome conversions, sort of a idea book!)
So how do I need your help? Let me start by sharing my philosophy of photography eBooks with you. I once heard a story about a long haul truck driver who was asked by a friend, “I just don’t see how you do it, driving all the way from New York to Los Angeles!!” The truck driver answered, ” I don’t, I drive from New York to Pittsburgh, then from Pittsburgh to St. Louis, on to Oklahoma City, then to Albuquerque and then on into LA.” What he was saying is he breaks the trip up into manageable parts! I believe that we learn the same way. The problem with many instructional photo books is that they try to take what someone has learned over 20 years and fit it into 200 pages! To do that you have to go fast and complicate things. I prefer to take one simple concept at a time and make sure the person, trying to learn, truly gets it! I have Scott Kelby to thank for cementing this theory into my method of teaching. He built a wildly successful business out of a simple concept, “Help them get it!” If you do that, as they say in Field of Dreams, “Build it and they will come….” Well he built it, and they surely keep coming! It’s called value! That’s why I’m part of KelbyOne! People want to learn, and if you make it easy to learn, you will develop a following. I just want to help people learn the thing I understand best, photography!
The first six books are deceptively simple, very deceptively! I really don’t care if anyone thinks they are a little “light weight”, as long as they walk away understanding things a lot better! Future books will get more “involved”! In photography 90% of what you really need to know is in the first six books, the remaining 10% will be spread over a bunch of books, and that is where you come in!
I need your suggestions! After you read the first free book and any other book you buy and read, shoot me an email and give me your thoughts! Here is what is coming next!
The Fuji X-System – A User’s Guide! * not an every setting book, but how to use the system to make great images!
Designing a Photograph – Advanced Composition
Americana Photography – The How To Guide
The Story Behind – Americas From 500 Feet I & II (the best of both books!)
My Favorite Images – How They Were Shot
Existing Light Photography – Shooting in the Almost Dark!
So the next step is up to you, jump in and let me know what you think, and by-the-way the majority of my books are only $4.99. How do you like them apples!
Blessings,
the pilgrim
Once again, how on earth do I think I know enough to write these books????!!!! In the last 45 years I’ve taught side by side with, and studied under some of the greatest photographers of our age, and I learned things from every one of them:
John Shaw – Scott Kelby – Art Wolfe – Jack Graham – David & Mark Muench
Jim Brandenburg – Jay Maisel – Joe McNally – Bill Pekala – The Late Galen Rowell
Bob Krist – Bryan Peterson – L.L. Rue – George Lepp – Fred Sisson – Mark Kettenhofen
R.C. Concepcion – Matt Kloskowski – Moose Peterson – Jim Begley – Vinny Colucci
Jim Haverstock – Tom Bol – and on and on, and on!
This entry was posted on Tuesday, October 7th, 2014 at 3:01 pm
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I can’t think of a better person to do what you are doing.
In terms of priority, I think the Fuji X system book would be up there given the lack of information now.
One I missed on the list are Photoshop guides. There’s a lot of PS instruction available but it’s either overkill or bogged down about importing images, etc. Also, thanks to Adobe’s new policies I’ve moved away from PS (I think PS5 is my latest update) to Elements 12 (and soon 13) and Lightroom 5. PSE is a very feature packed program and you can do a lot with it once you know how to translate PS to PSE.
I will leave the Photoshop and Lightroom stuff to the real experts like Scott, Matt and RC
Okay, Bill,
You’ve already got a great set of books lined up…..it’ll be a great winter reading these books!
What I’m hoping for isn’t a book title, per se, but that the Christian fellowship spirit that so inhabits your writings here will also spring to life in some of your books.
I (and my friends here) would love to see some of your shots of nature (and man-made) with the inspiration you draw from them. I know to some readers that may sound corny or “not professional” but I believe our best work lives in our heart.
And our best fellowship comes from sharing that with others on our journey.
Well, you won’t have to wait long, that is part of the plan starting mid-November!
Bill,
I am looking forward to your books. I love to read how to improve my images and I do not know who better to read than you. I still review the notes I have took at events where you were a presenter. Your presentation were well organized and easy to understand and I expect the books to be of the same quality.
I’ll do my best Bill, and thanks!
I’m looking forward to your books. Do you plan on covering Depth of Field in any of your books?
I think it’s a concept a lot of people struggle with (example: how a fast lens has little or no depth of field at infinity so there’s no need to shoot a landscape at f8 if you’re focused at infinity…I see this a lot and when I try to explain I get the deer in the headlights look).
Just one idea of something I think would be important to cover.
It is actually addressed in the first book, the Camera’s Controls, a more deep treatment will come in a future book. The basics are covered in the Foundational Series.
Hi Bill –
Can’t wait to see your new e-books and will be ordering the entire set. If they are anything like your “Great Photography Workshop” book, they will be great. As a recent convert from Canon to the Fuji X-system, your experience and suggestions will be well received. Many people, and especially us old codgers who simply can’t travel to exotic locations, have a hard time coming up with new things to photograph in our close environs – at least something that hasn’t been done a thousand times before. Some new suggestions on this subject would be good; and hope you have a few words on developing a photo project like your “Americana” series.
Thanks. and God’s blessing on your new project,
Thanks Bill, I do have an Americana book coming!
A book on HDR. There are 3 or 4 programs out there that can take you down that road. Getting an image through the HDR process without bludgeoning the viewer however, is a real art.
I’m begging Jim Begley to do that one, he is one of the best I know at HDR!
Hi Bill,
I would love to see you do some location photography books — Photography and the Smoky Mountains… Photography and Old Car City… Photography and Yosemite
Where to go, what time of day, what month etc.
Along the lines of the late John Netherton’s “Guide to Photography and the Smoky Mountains”
Thanks, looking forward to your new ebooks!
Jack
Might just do that!!!! Good idea! Thanks!!!
Bill I love your work and just purchased a Fuji XT1 coming from a Nikon D800. Your photos have amazing color and I was wondering are you shooting Raw or Jpeg and what film simulation are you using. They all are so vivid. Have you written any articles on how you have the camera settings and how you post process.
Bill I’m sorry one other question what Nikon mount do you use on the XT1? Do Nikon AF lens work on the camera with the mount. I understand that they won’t AF but will they manual focus. For Instance the Nikkor 300 F4?
I shoot JPEG only about 99% of the time, I bracket in Provia (standard). – Velvia – and monochrome with red filter. I process, what very little that is needed in Photoshop CS-6! I’m using older manual focus lenses with the regular conversion mount from Amazon. I will be going into great detail about all of this in my upcoming book, The Fuji X System User’s Giide!
I would love to see an e-book on visual storytelling.
Going beyond single images and show the thought process to tell a story through a series/collection of images. Many think it’s simply pulling together a collection of your best images that stand on their own …but often don’t fit together as a whole that flows.
How to approach a project from start to finish – planning stage right through to export options for sharing (book, Powerpoint, multimedia, etc.). Include real world practical helps for the photographer’s interaction with people in the story especially with strangers and cross-cultural; the use of wide, close-up, med. shots, etc. and the part each play in sharing a complete visual story that flows; use of color, composition, etc. and how they relate to clear, focused message/story being communicated. …and the list goes on!
I see this as being a big need in the area of missions and training our workers in how to integrate a series of images to tell their ministry stories/projects and vision. I’ve collected some great resources on this subject over the years but nothing that would present it in a Simple and Concise way. If an e-book like this existed, I would recommend it to our co-workers worldwide. 🙂