The Photographer's Playbook: 307 Assignments and Ideas

Great book.I love using the book for creativity.

Photography is perhaps THE literacy of our age. After reading Roland Barthes' The Third Meaning, Walter Benjamin's A Short History of Photography, David Levi Strauss' Photography and Belief, and Paul Graham's Photography is Easy Photography is Difficult, this introduces Photography as a multiverse. There are theorists, curators, historians, practitioners, and students who all approach photography through the "lens" of teacher and student, of how to construct though image, be it the intentionality pre-shoot, the enactivism and chance in the phenomenon of the moment the shutter captures light, to the Barthesian construction from the image captured. Want to grapple with everything "image" can come to mean, at least from the webbings within the walls of Bard, Yale, Bryn Mawr, NYU, Parsons, and East Coast publications, this is critical read!

I have read some of these reviews and decided I needed to add my input because let’s face it the world is full of people who take things too literal. This book says right off the bat not to take it to literal. Seriously if you read the “About This Book” page it says it. Now some people think it is full of useless rambling and people who don’t know what they are talking about. I bought this book to push myself into a new direction with my photography and this book has done just that. Now it may not help commercial photographers or photographers who have been in the trade for 40+ years but it has helped me. Some of the “assignments” I decided to start right away were on Pages 3, 6, 15, 59, 244, 381 And 383 now these aren’t all considered “assignments but they helped me get started. I feel people bought this blindly, didn’t research it and assumed it to be like any other photography book with photos and explanations and so on but it isn’t. This isn’t a book you open and just read through. I like to open it to random pages and that is how I decide what “assignment” I am doing next. This isn’t a novel or a how-to book you don’t read it cover to cover.

So yes it's a little bit condescending but aren't most photographers? People may find this book not helpful. But I think for a little inspriration and some unconventional ideas this book is great and helpful. This book reminds me a little bit of art school. Warning it's not your typical photography book. If your looking for typical then this is not your book (although some may need a book like this). I gave this book 4 stars because I love that this book is non traditional and kooky at times. We need kooky in our creative lives, no? I do know some of the photographers but not all. I do wish I saw some ideas for example from Diane Arbus herself (sorry Amy). In Diane Arbus's bio there is an assignment for her students. It's a wonderful assignment. I only wish this book was a little more like that. But I think it's good for what it is. There are no photographs and I agree with that decision. I will assume the creator of the book didn't want the reader to get too influenced by the photographers. This allows the reader to come up with their own interpretation of the assignments. Ok so it means we have to read without pictures, oh well. Some of you may get annoyed at the tone and the unconventional ideas / assignments. Dearest "pro" photographer humble yourself the fact is you don't know it all. Lov your fellow photographer. :/

I bought this to enhance shooting ideas, thus skill building. This is a great source for a beginner like me. Also, the book arrived in excellent condition from the seller.

What a fascinating book. This is not really designed to be worked through cover to cover, but more looked at when you're in a slump. Some of the assignments are really more words of wisdom than assignments. However, this book is full of great challenges to really help your creative juices flow. I'm in a small group of photographer who challenge each other and when we need new ideas, we pull from this book. One challenge, for example, is to shoot a sheet of white paper on a white background only in 36 unique ways. Sounds horrible right? but we were thrilled with our results and really got into it. My favorite so far has been to shoot an excerpt from a book, shoot the book as a prop or metaphor, and do something to the book and shoot it. I certainly haven't made it through yet, but I'm pleased with the purchase.

This book is good for beginners but I am not a beginner I am a little past that so this book is not really bad helpful because if you can't find a perfect picture this is what that books about teaching you how to get a perfect picture

I was in a creative slump and getting really frustrated. As soon as I started reading this my mind opened up. So far my favorite idea was to recreate a favorite photo. I didn't do the assignment to a "T", but I did recreate a shot I did of my son last year, but with myself as the subject. It was fun. Some of the exercises get a little "deep", but that's OK. Take what you can and leave what you can't.