Archive for the 'books' Category

Book Review: Practical Django Projects

Published on October 29, 2008 in books and python. 0 Comments

James Bennett, the release manager for Django has written a book called Practical Django Projects. At 237 pages, this book is even shorter than Learning Website Development with Django. Miraculously, Bennett manages to pack even more content into his book. He uses three different projects to illustrate the basic concepts of using Django. Early on in the book you are introduced to Django’s generic views mechanism, which makes it very easy to do the kinds of displays that are common in many web applications. Along with generic views, there’s a good treatment of how to keep functionality separated and reusable by good design of URLs. There’s also a much stronger treatment of the templating aspects of Django. He covers template inheritance, but also covers the creation of custom template tags.

Like “Learning Website Development with Django”, “Practical Django Projects” was completed before Django 1.0 shipped, so there are going to be some differences between what is described in the book and what you’ll encounter with Django 1.0. I like both books, and I’m probably biased by the order in which I read them. Either book would be fine for someone learning Django from scratch, but I think that “Practical Django Projects” is the book that I would turn to first when I couldn’t recall how to do something. In addition to the extra topics covered (and that’s not entirely fair because “Learning Website Development with Django” also has a few areas that it covers better), there’s more of an application building focus in Bennett’s book. That emphasis appeals to me, and Bennett has lots of application architecture hints sprinkled throughout the book.

Django is a great piece of work and deserves very serious consideration by people looking to build web applications. I’m glad to see that publishers are getting Django books out into the world.

Book Review: Learning Website Development with Django

Published on September 19, 2008 in books and python. 1 Comment

The folks at Packt Publishing sent me a copy of Learning Website Development with Django by Ayman Hourieh. It’s a fairly thin book, weighing in at just 243 pages, but it it is a very good introduction to Django. Knowledge of Python is assumed, so if you need that information, you’ll need another book. Hourieh uses a running example, a social bookmarking application, throughout the book. This means that he is adding features to the application in each chapter, which is a style that I like because it shows how to use Django to build up a decently featured application piece by piece. There is lots of code, which I found easy to read, except for some places where the bold facing of new code was somehow omitted.

The only problem with the book was that it was finished before Django went 1.0, so there are undoubtedly some places where things are not quite in sync with Django 1.0. Hourieh did make an effort to deal with some of the largest 1.0 changes, like newforms, but omitted other like Unicode support. This is inevitable when the book and software are not in sync, but since Django only went 1.0 a few weeks ago, the only documentation that is completely up to date is the official Django documentation itself.

If you know Python and for some reason have been holding off on learning Django, this is a good book to help you get started. There is also an e-book version available via Packt’s website.

Book Review: Practical Artistry: Light & Exposure for Digital Photographers

Published on May 30, 2008 in books and photography. 1 Comment

I’m not sure how it happened, but somehow I got onto the list for a review copy of Practical Artistry: Light & Exposure for Digital Photographers by Harold Davis. I’m not complaining in the slightest bit, just mystified. I’m a reader of Harold’s blog, and his choice of nature subjects is pretty close to mine, so I’ve always appreciated his photographs. This book is aimed a people who are trying to learn (and subsequently master) the basics of exposure, which puts it squarely in competition with Bryan Peterson’s Understanding Exposure, which is a book that every photographer really ought to read.

So how does Davis’ work stand up when compared to Peterson’s? The basic sections are strong, and either book is fine in this respect. I think that Understanding Exposure has more of an emphasis on the creative aspects of photography, and does a better job of helping the reader understand how to achieve particular creative effects by manipulating exposure. In particular, for beginners, Peterson gives stronger guidance on specific values for apertures and shutter speeds, that can be helpful to people that don’t have much of a background.

On the other hand, I think that Davis has a much better section on understanding and using the in-camera light meters. I have the revised version of Understanding Exposure, which is updated for digital cameras, but Light & Exposure for Digital Photographers is really much more up to date for the digital age. There is a good discussion on ISO, and how to use ISO as part of the exposure control. Along with that there is an excellent discussion on noise and the use of noise in the creative process. I was glad to find some treatment of white balance. One of the easiest ways to pick out inexperienced photographer’s pictures is to look at the white balancing of the pictures. There is also a chapter on post-processing and RAW processing, a topic to which entire books are devoted, but I think it is helpful for people to understand the role of post-processing in the digital age.

As you would expect with a photography book, there are lots of pictures. As I mentioned, Davis’ preference in nature subjects is close to mine, so I really enjoyed the pictures, and there is lots of commentary accompanying each photograph. The photos in Peterson’s book are more diverse in subject matter, which is probably better from a teaching point of view.

At the end, though, I like both books. For the stage that I am at photographically, I have a slight preference for Peterson’s Understanding Exposure. I am working hard on the creative aspects of my photography, so I am in a frame of mind to be biased towards Peterson’s treatment. Light & Exposure for Digital Photographers is also a very good book, and I would have no problem recommending it to a beginning photographer. I certainly got something out of reading it (and probably could stand to read each book a few more times). The subject matter in these books is so important that one of these two books should be included in the box with every DSLR sold.

Book Review: The Photographer’s Eye

Published on May 16, 2008 in books and photography. 2 Comments

Learning to lighting has done a lot for my photography. It’s not just gaining a new appreciation for light of all kinds, but also the fact that lit photographs have cause me to think about photographs differently. I used to be a much more reactive photographer - I would just be waiting for moments to happen in order to capture them. Now, I’ve become a little more thoughtful about what I want to the end picture to look like, even in situations that are fairly fast moving. Improving my grasp of composition is definitely something that I am working on.

My favorite book on photographic composition was Photographic Composition by Tom Grill and Mark Scanlon. At least it was until I read Michael Freeman’s The Photographer’s Eye: Composition and Design for Better Digital Photos.The entire first chapter is all about framing, which is the most extensive treatment that I’ve seen so far. In addition to a treatment of the usual compositional elements, there’s also a chapter on design basics, which I definitely needed some help with (and probably still do). Perhaps the best chapter of all is the last one on process, where Freeman walks through a case study or two, showing how he prepared and then composed a picture in a photojournalistic setting. Learning someone else’s thought process always seems to yield a bump up for me, much more so than just learning the straight mechanics.

Of course, with all things photographic, it’s not enough to read the book and understand it. The trick is putting it all into practice.

“The Moment It Clicks”

Published on February 24, 2008 in books and photography. 4 Comments

I haven’t been taking as many photographs as I would like recently. One thing I have managed to find some time for is some new photography books. Several of the photography blogs that I read have been talking up Joe McNally’s book “The Moment It Clicks”. McNally is a very accomplished magazine photographer, and the book is an accumulation of his experience in 30 years of shooting. There are over 100 little section in the book. Each section begins with a short quote/quip, and is accompanied by a full page photograph along with a full page explanation of the lesson, and often times an explanation of exemplar photograph.

Several other reviewers, including David Hobby, reported getting the book and then staying up way too late reading it cover to cover. I was sorely tempted to, but there was just too much information to do that. There’s an enormous amount of content and when I finished I was grateful for all the experience that I had just run by my eyeballs and brain. This is a book for working shooters, and if you don’t put the stuff to work, you won’t really get the value out of the book. The challenge for me, and I suspect many others, will be translating these short pithy lessons into a part of our regular photographic practice. Since we’re reading a condensation of 30 years of Joe McNally’s life, there’s no telling how long that will take. But at least now we have something that we can turn to periodically to remind us.

Even better, McNally has started a blog that picks up where the book left off.

Blog: subscribed. Book: highly recommended.