Written for Amazon.com:

According to Freeman Patterson, you don’t have to travel far to take engaging photographs. Try your back yard, or one of the rooms in your house. The trick is to learn how to make a photograph, rather than take a photograph. Too many photographers look for an existing “photo,” then take it. Patterson suggests that you learn to see, to look at common objects in an uncommon way.

Patterson helps us to see better by teaching us the building blocks of aesthetic image making, these being light, tone, color, shape, lines, textures, and perspective as well as dominance, balance, proportion, and rhythm. Patterson carefully explains these elements while clearly illustrating his points with numerous photographs. Once you understand these elements, you will be in a better position, literally and figuratively, to make more engaging photos.

In a congenial and clear writing style, we learn to visually explore a subject. Patterson encourages us to shoot much film, sometimes exhausting a roll or two on one subject as we circumnavigate its aesthetic possibilities. He illustrates this approach with images of his own, for instance an “elongated oval shape” created by the sun that highlights the curving peak of a black Stetson hat; or images of a rising planet and an aurora occurring within a clear glass paperweight.

Freeman Patterson takes the reader on a trip of visual exploration; all while being reminded how to assemble the building blocks of visual design to create expressive images. This book is truly among the pathways to a more creative self.