Working The Light | My Photo Bookshelf
Alongside newly published books, I also enjoy picking up older, usually second-hand photography books. I like to look back and enjoy the earlier work of my favourite photographers and read about their approach to photography back in the day. Working the Light was first published in 2006 and features three of the UK’s most well-known landscape photographers; Joe Cornish, David Ward and Charlie Waite. I bought this book to feel inspired, to learn from their critiques, and to find out how they went about taking photos almost two decades ago.
Author’s synopsis
Working the Light offers readers a unique chance to participate in a masterclass with three of Britain’s leading practitioners and teachers of landscape photography. Alongside a portfolio of their latest work, Charlie Waite, Joe Cornish and David Ward write about the genre for which they are best known: how they came to it, what inspires them, their current projects and the directions in which they see their work developing - for example, what role might digital play for any of these lovers of film?
Each of the three section of the book explores the theme of ‘working the light’ - surely the most critical and challenging aspect of landscape photography - with Joe Cornish writing about Wilderness Landscapes, Charlie Waite discussing Inhabited Landscapes and David Ward concentrating on inner landscapes.
Each section also contains a Gallery Workshop in which the trio critique images submitted by clients of the renowned travel company Light & Land, offering the kind of constructive comment and positive advice that one would normally only expect to get in the field.
Working the Light gives its readers a real sense of taking part in a location workshop with Waite, Cornish or Ward while also preserving their wisdom in permanent form that can be referred to in the future. Follow-up volumes are already planned, with the next in the series looking to explore the concept of Developing Vision and Style.
My thoughts about the book
It’s an interesting concept and one I like quite a lot. The book is made up of three chapters, each dedicated to one of the three aforementioned masters of their craft and each focused on a sub-genre of landscape photography. Within each chapter, you are taken on a bit of a journey, starting with a collection of photos and writing from each photographer, followed by a gallery of images submitted by previous clients of the Light & Land workshops and at the end of each chapter, Joe, David and Charlie offer their thoughts on those photos.
What I like the most about the book is that it’s not just about showing successful photos, but the three photographers also share what they consider unsuccessful images and write about how they might have been improved. This is important, as it teaches us that even those we consider the pinnacle of landscape photography are always learning and still need to work hard on their craft to take the best photos possible.
This book includes some thought-provoking quotes and useful tips for taking better images, and the critique offered to the submitted photos is both fair and respectful.
Even based on today’s standards, this book still holds its own and I thoroughly enjoyed reading it, drawing inspiration from the photos shared within.
Book Details
Hardcover
Size: 260mm x 234mm
Pages: 160
Availability at the time of writing: Unavailable from the usual UK booksellers. Consider buying a used copy.