Holiday reading - no chic lit in sight!

In the old days, before photography became the obsession that it has become for me, Christmas holidays would have meant stocking up on Chic Lit and reading books from cover to cover. I used to spend hours curled up on the lounge with books by Marian Keyes or Cathy Kelly, getting lost in the amusing love lives of 30-somethings. Not so these days!

This morning, three books of rather a different nature arrived from Amazon.com - all photography related.

The first, Captured By the Light, by David A. Ziser, was recommended to me by photog buddy, Steve Peters. It's a wedding photography how-to book, and flicking through it this morning, it looks like a great, step by step kinda book that covers exposure, on and off camera flash, backlighting, composition, and what Ziser describes as "wedding workflows".

It has lots of pictures - which I reckon is imperative for a book about photography, but I particularly like the diagrams of the set up of each shot.

It also lists the gear this photographer users, and which lenses he uses in which situations - I find that sort of stuff helpful - besides, he's a Canon shooter, so I can relate to the gear he talks about.

While I was checking out the reviews of the first book on Amazon, I came across The Photographer's Eye, by Michael Freeman.

It's a book about composition and design, and also came with some great reviews.

It covers subjects such as framing, design basics such as contrast, balance, tension and rhythm, graphic and photographic elements, light and colour, intent and process.

Again, it has lots of good quality colour pictures, with notes about what makes each image weak or strong from a composition and design perspective.

The final book, Photojournalism: The Professionals' Approach, is one that interests me because of my interest in journalism.

Hindsight is a brilliant thing, and had I known I was going to develop such an interest in photography, I'd have probably taken some photography and photojournalism units when I did my MA in Journalism. Oh well...life's like that sometimes.

According to the many reviews on Amazon, this book is apparently used as a textbook in journalism courses. It covers a bunch of topics including spot news, general news, features, portraits, sports, photo editing, camera gear, multimedia, video, illustration, ethics, law, history and more - it's one chunky book, which I think is going to keep me going for some time!

So - that's my holiday reading list. Have you read any cool photography books or blogs lately? If so, feel free to leave comments below about what you read and how it helped your photography!