The Art of Black and White Photography, by Torsten Andreas Hoffman, is a well-documented book covering the whole gamut of B & W photography. It is a sort of tutorial described in simple terms with a lot of pictorial details thrown in.

In it, the author shares his vast experience in the field of photography, making it a great source of information and revelation to any photographer doing B & W photography. Although the book is primarily meant for those photographers specializing in B & W, there are many useful tips for photographers in general. What is unique about the book is that besides touching on professional levels of photography there are many useful tips for amateurs.

Apart from dwelling on B & W photography, the author also focuses on image composition and capture, and on the digital workflow. He clears the misconception that analog cameras are better suited to shooting in B & W by disclosing that recent cameras based on high-end technology offering 12 to 22 megapixels are good enough for excellent B & W photography. Although the latest cameras have features to shoot in B & W, the author recommends shooting images in color and then converting them to B & W in digital workflow by using the grayscale mode or the channel mix in Adobe Photoshop

He explains the importance of shooting in RAW mode for bringing out the grey tones in B & W images and the advantage of allowing you to saving as TIFF files instead of JPEG. In analog photography, a photographer has to use color filters to get dramatic B & W images. Now with digital SLR cameras backed by advanced software such as Adobe Photoshop CS3, one can manipulate the images to get equally good results.

The author also touches on other topics such as how to overcome cliched photos, capture moods, create unusual perspectives and pictorial tension between elements and play with forms as well as learn the new features of Photoshop CS3.

The book is also useful in the sense that it caters to different applications of photography such as architecture, street photography, portraiture, surreal photography with stunning B & W photography. The book illustrates the elements of photographic language differentiating creative photography from random shooting. In the last part, the author highlights the role of post-processing techniques using Photoshop CS2 and CS3.
 

In the final analysis, it must be said the book is able to deliver on what it set out to achieve, so I would recommend this to serious photographers as a must read book

                                                                                                                -  Rajen Nair

                                                                                                                                      (Published in Ohmynews)