On a recommendation from Jim Blomfield I recently purchased a copy of Bruce Barnbaum‘s book, The Art of Photography, first published in 2010 and now – already – in its fourth printing. Jim was right; this is a great book, certainly ranking in the top five in my library. I purchased the book mostly because I have been a fan of Barnbaum’s black-and-white images for several years, and I wanted the book as a resource for helping me produce the finest gelatin silver black-and-white prints I possibly can. That detail – on characteristic curves, dodging and burning, paper flashing, etc. – is in the later chapters and provides some superb background for image-taking and darkroom technique, to complement my other excellent volumes on darkroom technique by Ansel Adams, John P. Schaefer, Henry Horenstein, and others. But what makes Barnbaum’s latest work important for every photographer, colour or black-and-white, film or digital, are the introductory chapters on composition, light, simplicity vs. complexity, line and form. These chapters make excellent reading, and provide the most lucid description I have yet read on