P. Reavy's profile

Nice edition of Waugh's masterpiece, 9 Jun 2009

Hard to fault this hardback of the 3 Sword of Honour novels which the critics will tell you was the best thing Waugh wrote.

I left reading Frank Kermode's introduction until the end. It is up to his usual lucid standards, but left me slightly confused about some of the editorial changes which were made by Waugh later and whether the book in my hands represented Waugh's final wishes or not. Also, although Kermode praises the novels, somehow he managed to diminish them slightly for me. I should have left reading the introduction for a few weeks after reading the book.

A great grounding especially if your idea of photography fits with his, 9 Jun 2009

I read this from cover to cover, learned a lot and can't fault it as a primer in composition. However what the book can't address is that photography is a matter of taste.

Freeman himself takes technically superb photographs of the type you would see in National Geographic (where he has been published). However, he breaks with the history of photography from around the point when Friedlander and Winogrand appeared. For him, their work is simply sloppy or belongs to the art world rather than that of photography.

Freeman writes clearly and analytically from the point of view of an experienced professional and teacher. Within the terms of reference he has chosen, this… Read more

Rings true, 5 Jan 2009

While I'm not a professional photographer, this book rang true to me and inspired me to do more with my camera. I didn't want to put it down and read it in one evening. It is quite worldly and plain-speaking. The writers clearly love photography and have a lot of experience. While this book doesn't deal in any of the technicalities of photography, there is a lot of very plausible advice.