Book Review: The Digital Photography Books (Vol 2 & 3)

I received vol 1 of his 3 vol series from a  friend for Christmas and thoroughly enjoyed reading it so decided to purchase the other 2 volumes myself.

as usual you can get straight to the Amazon links for these products here:

Peachpit Press – The Digital Photography Book, Volume 2, Softcover Book by Scott Kelby

Peachpit Press – The Digital Photography Book, Volume 3, Softcover Book by Scott Kelby

or to buy all 3 copies in a boxed set:

Scott Kelby’s Digital Photography Boxed Set, Volumes 1, 2, and 3

You can read my review of Vol 1 here. it is worth a read if you are interested in this kind of book as I don’t intend to repeat much of what I wrote there and there are so many similarities between all 3 books.

Having read Vol 2 I went straight on to read Vol 3 and thought it might be simpler to review them both together, as there is not a lot to say that is distinct between the 2.

Anyhow, on the whole these books were as excellent as the first one and well worth the investment, I have learnt a fair bit by reading these books.

The Authors Humour has not improved at all and he still comes out with the same kinds of humour which some might find off putting but I don’t mind at all, you just know it is coming so you brace yourself for it.

The only issue for me is that in these 2 volumes, he seems to contradict what he says in the first volume for example in Vol 1 he goes to great length to say that you should ALWAYS shoot on a tripod then in these 2 volumes he keeps talking about how to shoot hand hold, OK I get that he cant assume everyone would follow the tripod advice but reading Vols 2 & 3 you would not get the impression that shooting on a tripod was a big deal at all.

The other issue where he is so clearly contradicting himself is in his first volume he gives a very simple recipe for portraits, saying that you should always shoot at F11 (Aperture setting) and use a short zoom length between 85mm & 100mm but in the subsequent books he talks about shooting at all sorts of different focal lengths and Aperture sizes, including shooting as high as 200mm.

As with Vol 1 the authors philosophy is very simple, just tell you how to achieve the look your after with just a little background info to help you but not confusing or bombarding you with all the technical stuff, this is refreshing and makes for an easier read for the novie photographer.

These books, taken together, add up to a valuable resource for anyone who wants to achieve better photographs from their dSLR camera, ince again he focuses primarily on Nikon & Cannon cameras inthe technical how to bits but you can adapt those bits to your own particular camera if needed.

Anyone reading these books get first hand help and advice from a real expert in the field and one who knows his stuff and knows how to put it across in print in a way that even the novice can understand, as he himself says, it is like your out on a photo shoot with him at your side guiding you through.

I am sure that I will be refering back to these books time and again over the comming years as I seek to improve my own photography skills.

Book Review: The Busy Christians guide to busyness.

This is the third in my trilogy of book reviews, it is actually the book I read first but have decided to review last.

I wasn’t sure whether or not to actually do this review, for reasons that might become clear as you read the review, but as I have made a decision to generally review books then I ought to be consistent.

This book, The Busy Christian’s Guide to Busyness by Tim Chester, was recommended reading at a conference I was at in November, so I ordered it there, and also came as recommended reading for an Administrators Training course I am undertaking at the moment, although for the life of me I don’t know why they recommended it!

The book isn’t what the title might lead you to expect, it isn’t about how to organise your life and workflow to achieve things and reduce your stress load.

Whereas this book has a lot of very good points I did find the author extremely judgemental in his attitude, essentially implying that anyone who is over work is because they have a desire to feel important and needed, this simply is NOT the case!

In one section the author suggests that in the UK there is no excuse for anyone to be working more than 48 Hours as there is legislation that prevents employers from forcing you to work more than that, whereas he is correct to say there is such legislation in place he is pretty naive if he believes this is effective in allowing people free choice about working over that number of hours, currently it is possible for you to sign away your rights to a maximum 48 Hour week by writing a letter to that effect and my experience, which is not uncommon, was that I was given a letter to sign my rights away along with my contract of employment, unsigned at this point, on starting a new job, the clear inference, you sign away your rights or you don’t stay!

Also, the author suggests that the fact that people have to work long hours to keep things running suggests that they don’t have enough faith in God, this again is simply untrue, I used to be a Transport Manager and in a very cut throat business, in order to make the transport department profitable we had to operate with the bare minimum of staff in the office, this meant that we ALL had to work jolly hard to make sure that things kept running and we all, including the drivers working for us, remained in a job. For me, as a Christian, to have suggested that I wasn’t going to pull my own weight as I was going to trust God for the results would have been a rather ineffective witness to the people who I worked with.

I had, at some points, the livelihood of up to 40 staff in my responsibility and it wasn’t showing a lack of faith in God, or me wanting to ‘be their saviour’ as he suggests in another part of his book, that kept me working hard and long.

Now, I work in a much less pressured job, having been able to take a lower paid job, as a necessity as we have 2 children with disability, but the main reason why I have been able to make this move is because we have addition benefits, around the fact that they are adopted, which help to replace the income I have lost.

To suggest that others could do the same is pretty naive as finances are not exactly favourable when you take such a drastic pay cut! And it’s not about having to downsize and live in a smaller house, go for a cheaper car and do away with the 2 foreign holidays a year, we have none of those although the house we live in is a very expensive one it is a bungalow and barely meets the needs of our family, we have had to move into a poorer area to find something that we can afford that meets our needs, and even so are sinking huge amounts each month into a mortgage, so don’t even suggest that people can make do with a smaller house etc we certainly cold NOT afford the very basic level of standard of living we have currently had it not been for the sizeable adoption allowances we receive, I would therefore have been stuck in a senior management role that created a huge amount of stress and work, this is the reality for millions of people in the UK.

Also, the author suggests at another point that it might be better for people to downsize as a way of being able to reach out into needy areas of society but this is to suggest that the rich and well off don’t need Christ!

I had a very good friend who was a multi millionaire, worked very hard and had a very strong faith, would trust God for anything, sadly no longer with us as he has gone to glory, thanks to Cancer, but anyhow, he had such a huge impact on the business community and the fact that there were several hundred people, many from the business world, most of whom were extremely well off self made people, at his funeral, is a testimony to the way in which he reached into the higher levels of society, I know that he was responsible for some pretty influential people coming to know the Lord, to suggest to him that he should downsize and make do with less would be to take him out of his very strong sphere of influence, where he was able to do so much good.

Anyhow, there are my main thoughts on this book, it was interesting to read and there are some good bits but these are clouded by the judgmental attitude that comes across so strongly in the book, that comes from someone who, from what I have been able to find out about him, has spent most of his life in academic circles, in a very privileged situation and doesn’t have to live in the real world, never mind the fact that he is also earning significant amounts of money so is not in a good position to suggest that people are not as hard up as they make out to be or that they don’t have to work long hours to make ends meet or achieve even a basic standard of living.

So, in short, I am not sure why this book is recommended reading, I have read it and would suggest that you don’t bother wasting your money, and time, on it.

If anyone wants to know why most of my book reviews are positive, its because generally I choose books that I am fairly certain I will enjoy, this was the exception as it was recomended reading from a course so I had to read it really.

Of course, as always, people have a right to reply so if yuo have a different view/experience/understanding of the book feel free to comment on it here.

[houdini]

Book Review: Who Moved MY Cheese?

This is the second of 3 book reviews that I am currently planning on doing, this book ‘Who Moved My Cheese?: An Amazing Way to Deal with Change in Your Work and in Your Life?’ was written by Dr Spencer Johnson.

I picked up on this book through another blog I was reading but I can’t remember for the life of me whose blog it was and I haven’t been able to locate the post to give them credit, so if that’s you I am sorry, let me know and I will put a link back to your blog here. I was so struck by the concept of the book that I decide I must get hold of a copy and read it myself.

The book is essentially a parable, one that Dr Johnson came up with in his own head to help him deal with change in his own life and was passed on by word of mouth to several of his close, and extended circles of friends.

The book is billed as ‘One of the most successful business books ever’

The book itself is a rather strange one to be considered a business book, as it is essentially a make believe story, but it really can change how you think and indeed has been used with whole companies to change the atmosphere and culture of a whole workplace.

This book won’t take much of your time, it’s very thin, only 95 pages, and has got large print and lots of spaces, I am a slow reader yet managed to read this book in about an hour and a half, so I guess that it would be possible to read it in an hour if you tried hard enough.

The story centres around 2 mice, called Sniff & Scurry & 2 mice sized humans called Hem & Haw, who live in one of those labyrinth type mice cages, essentially it is the story of how they found contentment and security in a whole pile of cheese in a feeding station then the cheese ran out. The story then unfolds around the way they dealt with this change, with the mice immediately being prepared to run off in search of new cheese and the humans throwing a bit of a pity party and not wanting to go off looking for cheese. Expecting that the cheese will come back again, the parallel to today’s business world is pretty powerful.

The story goes on further as Haw eventually decides that he ought to go looking for new cheese and along the way learns a lot about himself, but he does eventually find the new cheese, the story ends rather curiously on a bit of a cliff hanger, as Haw & the Mice are enjoying the new cheese and then there are footsteps that could be Hem finding his way there as well but we don’t actually get to find out whether or not it was him! Leaves big question, did Hem leave the place of the old cheese, did he manage to find his way to the new cheese? Had he learnt anything along the way?

This story is a great read and has some real deep truths and hidden nuggets if you are prepared to read it with an open mind, at its base level it’s an amusing story that you could even read to young children and they would appreciate it, but it is also a very sophisticated and in-depth discussion on the need to foster a culture of embracing change and turning change to your advantage.

There is so much I could say but if I did it would spoil the book for you.

I would encourage anyone to read this whether you are a business person, sales rep, housewife, or whatever role you play in life, this will help you to think about how you relate to a changing world around you, whether that be change in your work environment, changes to your company’s product range, changing demands on you at home, or wherever the change occurs.

In today’s world we are seeing changes going on all around us at an incredible rate, especially with the continual development of emerging technologies, how we react to this change is key to whether we succeed in life or merely survive, or even worse, admit defeat.

The changing technology has had a dramatic impact on so much of our lives like, how we buy our products, how we pick up our news, how we relate to people, how we keep in touch and form our opinions, those who are ready for change will be able to take advantage of this by using new techniques to market themselves, re-invent their product range to encompass new technologies, take advantage of the phenomena of social networks, engage with customers, new and old. And that’s only talking about changes that have already taken place in the past few years.

Who knows whether there is another new BIG shift on its way, are we, are you prepared to keep an eye on future developments and take advantage of these changes to build your business? If not your likely to find yourself struggling and this book is a must read for you.

I don’t find change as difficult as many people, I am pretty ready to accept change but I still got a lot out of reading this book and want/need to go back and read it again at some stage.

So whether you find change easy or difficult this is a good read, even if you get nothing much out of it its certainly an amusing story that you could read to your children or grand children but I hope that it will be more than that and becomes something that you can use to leverage your own skills in adapting to change and an ever moving world.

This is the second of 3 book reviews that I am currently planning on doing, this book ‘Who Moved My Cheese?’ was written by Dr Spencer Johnson.

I picked up on this book through another blog I was reading but I can’t remember for the life of me whose blog it was and I haven’t been able to locate the post to give them credit, so if that’s you I am sorry, let me know and I will put a link back to your blog here.

The book is essentially a parable, one that Dr Johnson came up with in his own head to help him deal with change in his own life and was passed on by word of mouth to several of his close, and extended circles of friends.

The book is billed as ‘One of the most successful business books ever’

And is subtitled ‘An amazing way to deal with change in your work and in your life’

The book itself is a rather strange one to be considered a business book, as it is essentially a make believe story, but it really can change how you think and indeed has been used with whole companies to change the atmosphere and culture of a whole workplace.

This book won’t take much of your time, it’s very thin, only 95 pages, and has got large print and lots of spaces, I am a slow reader yet managed to read this book in about an hour and a half, so I guess that it would be possible to read it in an hour if you tried hard enough.

The story centres around 2 mice, called Sniff & Scurry & 2 mice sized humans called Hem & Haw, who live in one of those labyrinth type mice cages, essentially it is the story of how they found contentment and security in a whole pile of cheese in a feeding station then the cheese ran out. The story then unfolds around the way they dealt with this change, with the mice immediately being prepared to run off in search of new cheese and the humans throwing a bit of a pity party and not wanting to go off looking for cheese. Expecting that the cheese will come back again, the parallel to today’s business world is pretty powerful.

The story goes on further as Haw eventually decides that he ought to go looking for new cheese and along the way learns a lot about himself, but he does eventually find the new cheese, the story ends rather curiously on a bit of a cliff hanger, as Haw & the Mice are enjoying the new cheese and then there are footsteps that could be Hem finding his way there as well but we don’t actually get to find out whether or not it was him! Leaves big question, did Hem leave the place of the old cheese, did he manage to find his way to the new cheese? Had he learnt anything along the way?

This story is a great read and has some real deep truths and hidden nuggets if you are prepared to read it with an open mind, at its base level it’s an amusing story that you could even read to young children and they would appreciate it, but it is also a very sophisticated and in-depth discussion on the need to foster a culture of embracing change and turning change to your advantage.

There is so much I could say but if I did it would spoil the book for you.

I would encourage anyone to read this whether you are a business person, sales rep, housewife, or whatever role you play in life, this will help you to think about how you relate to a changing world around you, whether that be change in your work environment, changes to your company’s product range, changing demands on you at home, or wherever the change occurs.

In today’s world we are seeing changes going on all around us at an incredible rate, especially with the continual development of emerging technologies, how we react to this change is key to whether we succeed in life or merely survive, or even worse, admit defeat.

The changing technology has had a dramatic impact on so much of our lives like, how we buy our products, how we pick up our news, how we relate to people, how we keep in touch and form our opinions, those who are ready for change will be able to take advantage of this by using new techniques to market themselves, re-invent their product range to encompass new technologies, take advantage of the phenomena of social networks, engage with customers, new and old. And that’s only talking about changes that have already taken place in the past few years.

Who knows whether there is another new BIG shift on its way, are we, are you prepared to keep an eye on future developments and take advantage of these changes to build your business? If not your likely to find yourself struggling and this book is a must read for you.

I don’t find change as difficult as many people, I am pretty ready to accept change but I still got a lot out of reading this book and want/need to go back and read it again at some stage.

So whether you find change easy or difficult this is a good read, even if you get nothing much out of it its certainly an amusing story that you could read to your children or grand children but I hope that it will be more than that and becomes something that you can use to leverage your own skills in adapting to change and an ever moving world.

[houdini]