Product Description
This is an EXACT reproduction of a book published before 1923. This IS NOT an OCR'd book with strange characters, introduced typographical errors, and jumbled words.This book may have occasional imperfections such as missing or blurred pages, poor pictures, errant marks, etc. that were either part of the original artifact, or were introduced by the scanning process. We believe this work is culturally important, and despite the imperfections, have elected to bring it back into print as part of our continuing commitment to the preservation of printed works worldwide. We appreciate your understanding of the imperfections in the preservation process, and hope you enjoy this valuable book. ... Read more

Product Description
This is an EXACT reproduction of a book published before 1923. This IS NOT an OCR'd book with strange characters, introduced typographical errors, and jumbled words.This book may have occasional imperfections such as missing or blurred pages, poor pictures, errant marks, etc. that were either part of the original artifact, or were introduced by the scanning process. We believe this work is culturally important, and despite the imperfections, have elected to bring it back into print as part of our continuing commitment to the preservation of printed works worldwide. We appreciate your understanding of the imperfections in the preservation process, and hope you enjoy this valuable book. ... Read more

Product Description

Product Description
This is an EXACT reproduction of a book published before 1923. This IS NOT an OCR'd book with strange characters, introduced typographical errors, and jumbled words.This book may have occasional imperfections such as missing or blurred pages, poor pictures, errant marks, etc. that were either part of the original artifact, or were introduced by the scanning process. We believe this work is culturally important, and despite the imperfections, have elected to bring it back into print as part of our continuing commitment to the preservation of printed works worldwide. We appreciate your understanding of the imperfections in the preservation process, and hope you enjoy this valuable book. ... Read more

Product Description
This is an EXACT reproduction of a book published before 1923. This IS NOT an OCR'd book with strange characters, introduced typographical errors, and jumbled words.This book may have occasional imperfections such as missing or blurred pages, poor pictures, errant marks, etc. that were either part of the original artifact, or were introduced by the scanning process. We believe this work is culturally important, and despite the imperfections, have elected to bring it back into print as part of our continuing commitment to the preservation of printed works worldwide. We appreciate your understanding of the imperfections in the preservation process, and hope you enjoy this valuable book. ... Read more

Product Description
This scarce antiquarian book is included in our special Legacy Reprint Series. In the interest of creating a more extensive selection of rare historical book reprints, we have chosen to reproduce this title even though it may possibly have occasional imperfections such as missing and blurred pages, missing text, poor pictures, markings, dark backgrounds and other reproduction issues beyond our control. Because this work is culturally important, we have made it available as a part of our commitment to protecting, preserving and promoting the world's literature. ... Read more

Product Description
This textbook aims to make students aware that various rhetorical modes can and should be combined to produce effective results in composition. Selections combine various strategies while demonstrating one above the other. It includes selections demonstrating combined modes. ... Read more

Product Description
GRAMMAR IN THE COMPOSITION CLASSROOM guide ESL/EFL writing teachers to assess student's needs in terms of learning styles, to follow a grammar-from-context approach, to harness the power of technologies for the presentation of materials, and to respond to second language writing error, in effective ways. ... Read more

Product Description
Effective image design, a key ingredient in successful photographs, is a skill that any serious photographer must learn and master. In Photographic Composition, award-winning photographers Tom Grill and Mark Scanlon demonstrate a modern, clear, and easily understandable approach to composing great photographs. Combining straightforward text with instructive yet compelling images, they succeed in making composition not only learnable but enjoyable. This book can help all photographers gain more control over the design and productionof their pictures. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (25)

Dated
Being more than 20 years old, this book is dated. However, since it is on composition you would not go wrong buying it. Still I would recommend that you buy some of the other books.

I just bought my first DSLR camera. I bought ten photography books on amazon. I'm evaluating these books from the perspective of a semi-advanced amateur. (On things I've learnt is that book by the same author tends to be very similar. So make sure you vary your authors when buying more than one book. Rather than saying this author is good, let me buy more from him/her.)

Baffling
I have never understood why this, of any book purporting to instruct on composition/design, has remained in print for so long when several other books of actual merit have been out of print for so long.Other than the most elementary presentations on composing, the books with any meat in them have until 2007 been available only on the used market.

Thankfully, though, there are some top notch books available currently in print.Michael Freeman's "The Photographer's Eye," Harald Mante's "The Photograph," and Torsten A. Hoffmann's book.

This book is incomplete, rather misleading, out of date, boring to look at and to read.Take a pass.

Great for beginners, but that's about all
It's OK, but nothing really special. While I would have found something like this very useful six years ago when I was forced into professional photography working as a reporter at a small newspaper (grab a notebook and a camera was the mantra for anyone leaving the office), the concepts are a little too basic for me now. There is some interesting information about dynamic shapes and the emotions they evoke, and the emotions of color, so it's not a total loss. But unless you're new to photography, don't expect anything earth-shaking here.

First half excellent, second half vague
The first half of the book is a systematic approach to the composition of photographs. It describes `Photographic' and `Graphic' elements: for example, depth of field is a photographic element of the composition, while the placement of a silhouette within the image frame is a graphic element of the composition. I enjoyed reading this material, which really helped me think about what makes a photograph `work' and what makes other photographs `not work'. As some other reviewers have said, this is a really useful aide-memoire about the possibilities for control over the final photograph.

Then the book turns to the aesthetics of composition. What makes one picture communicate a calm and restful feeling, while another hits you right between the eyes? Good question. Unfortunately the book offers some rather vapid generalisations that reminded me of art school lingo. The book says: "a circle or smooth line conveys a feeling of calm, gentle rest." Oh really? I immediately think of a hangman's noose, or a coiled serpent ready to strike. Sorry, but generalisations about the emotional response of humans to an image are just nonsense. Different individuals will react differently to a photograph. Of course, in an art school, everyone has been tutored to believe that curved lines are always calm, etc, and to recognise these conventions when viewing a work of art. So if you are making photographs for assessment in an art school, by all means, follow the precepts of Grill and Scanlon. However in the outside world, not all viewers of all photographs will interpret curved lines as calm and restful. The aesthetics in this book seem rather too dogmatic, over-generalised and perhaps a little pretentious.

The book is worth reading, and certainly thought-provoking, but I think it's a little overrated.

A boring book
Got this book by the recommendation of Ken Rockwell on his website.

Though the book provides somewhat useful information, I'm disappointed about it because:
1. It's very boring. It's more like a text book. In my opinion, a book about an inspirational subject like photography should be inspiring to read.(compared to Understanding Exposure by Bryan Peterson, for instance)
2. Most of the illustrations are ugly. I don't know if the author just threw the pictures in it to make the points or I just can't understand the greatness of those pictures. But in my opinion, they are ugly. Therefore, I can hardly picture myself following the points the author's making because I don't want my photos to look like the ones illustrated in the book. ... Read more

Product Description
As the field of composition studies became more sophisticated in its understanding of research, the designs and assumptions underlying the early work were called into question. Researchers were challenged to design studies that were sensitive to the varying contexts in which writers write and to the ways their own roles shaped their investigations. The more comprehensive studies called for by these critiques are only now beginning to appear.

This volume presents some articles in which writers and what they do are at the center of inquiry. The focus is on what actually occurs as people write and how they make sense of what they are doing. Choosing such a focus grants human action central importance and enacts the belief that looking closely at individuals can be a primary starting point for understanding them and their worlds. Other papers take the researcher's shaping role into account. The integrity of such work rests not so much on a lifeless detachment from the phenomena being studied as on the author's vital engagement, and on a faithful rendering of what has been observed. This includes the author revealing his or her own impact of what has been seen and said.

In the broadest sense, composing is something we all do: the students and parents and writers and teachers who serve as subjects of research and those who write the research itself. It is what each of us is engaged in when we shape our understanding of life through the writing we do. And it is what can continue to light the way in composition studies for it illuminates what still makes this inquiry so intriguing and so rich -- that only human beings have this capacity to look and see more, to create new texts and new work, and in the creating compose their way to new understandings and new selves.
... Read more

Product Description
A Taste for Writing: Composition for Culinarians is the first composition and grammar textbook created specifically for culinary students. The first 19 chapters include thorough explanations of each stage of the writing process; chapters on the rhetorical modes, research, and business writing; and a chapter for ESL readers. The second half of the book covers the parts of speech and basic grammar, plus special chapters on verbs, pronouns, modifiers, parallelism, punctuation, spelling, and commonly misused words. A key concept behind A Taste for Writing is to break down barriers between readers and composition through explanations that draw images and examples from food and cooking.For example, ?brainstorming? ideas early in the writing process is compared to peeling a potato, and the commas that surround interrupters in a sentence become a server?s hands carrying a tray of fruit. Writing often has to do with storytelling, and A Taste for Writing exemplifies this by using stories from film and television that will help the reader relate to the concepts. The explanations are as visual and hands-on as possible and the book includes 50 photographs of culinary students and over 100 charts and diagrams that organize and illustrate key concepts. The highly visual text, hands-on activities, and samples of writing make the concepts easily accessible to professionals and students alike. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Great for students/aficionados of sociology and rhetoric
This book provides much insight for students and aficionados of sociology and rhetorical essays. It is a penetrating entrance into the process of reading and writing; it is a foray into diversity and humanness. In thiscompilation of essays, Warner, Hilliard and Piro have brilliantly combined,organized and analyzed a diverse selection, which raises the bar to a newstandard by which future books will be measured.

The essay authors areappropriate for the study of rhetoric (Bradbury, E.B. White, DorothyParker, Gore Vidal, Walker, Tan, et al), and the topics (language, culture,family, communication, lifestyle, immigrants, ritual, prejudices) are wellsuited to the study of cross-cultural issues and themes.

The organizationis multi-dimensional, allowing for a variety of approaches to learning withthis book. The "rhetorical table-of-contents" contains thestandard groupings, such as narration, description, cause and effect,persuasion, etc., but also includes new categories such as communicationand process analysis. The secondary view, however, is what grabbed myattention. There is a "thematic table-of-contents" section whichgroups the essays in another manner more suited to a sociological view(stereotypes, racism, sexism, places, etc.)

The accompanying activitiesand exercises are thought provoking, inspirational and rewarding, whetherfor classroom use, or individual or group assignments.

Overall, a finebook for students of rhetoric, culture and beyond. I highly recommend it. ... Read more

Product Description
This is an EXACT reproduction of a book published before 1923. This IS NOT an OCR'd book with strange characters, introduced typographical errors, and jumbled words.This book may have occasional imperfections such as missing or blurred pages, poor pictures, errant marks, etc. that were either part of the original artifact, or were introduced by the scanning process. We believe this work is culturally important, and despite the imperfections, have elected to bring it back into print as part of our continuing commitment to the preservation of printed works worldwide. We appreciate your understanding of the imperfections in the preservation process, and hope you enjoy this valuable book. ... Read more

Product Description
This is an EXACT reproduction of a book published before 1923. This IS NOT an OCR'd book with strange characters, introduced typographical errors, and jumbled words.This book may have occasional imperfections such as missing or blurred pages, poor pictures, errant marks, etc. that were either part of the original artifact, or were introduced by the scanning process. We believe this work is culturally important, and despite the imperfections, have elected to bring it back into print as part of our continuing commitment to the preservation of printed works worldwide. We appreciate your understanding of the imperfections in the preservation process, and hope you enjoy this valuable book. ... Read more

Product Description
341 pages provides a lively collection of fifty-seven short essays-twenty six are new, by both student and professional writers. Along with familiar names, this reader features many new professional voices, like Bharati Mukherjee and Bjorn Skogquist. ... Read more