Rating: 
Summary: Perception and Photography is required reading!
Review: As a Professor of Graphic Design at Rochester Institute of Technology, I am honored to contribute a few words on behalf of Dr. Richard Zakia's new edition of Perception and Photography. This book contains a career's worth of knowledge and information. It is configured in such a way that anyone involved visual work, student or professional, must read this book. Its scientific and aesthetic explanations for how and why imagery works are presented in an accessible, easy-to-read format. Thank you, Dr. Z. for providing the fundamentals of visual communications!
Rating:
Summary: Perception and Photography is required reading!
Review: As a Professor of Graphic Design at Rochester Institute of Technology, I am honored to contribute a few words on behalf of Dr. Richard Zakia's new edition of Perception and Photography. This book contains a career's worth of knowledge and information. It is configured in such a way that anyone involved visual work, student or professional, must read this book. Its scientific and aesthetic explanations for how and why imagery works are presented in an accessible, easy-to-read format. Thank you, Dr. Z. for providing the fundamentals of visual communications!
Rating:
Summary: i love this book
Review: I own the first edition of this book and I'm still reading and rereading it. This book is a source of ideas, methods, knowledge. What is more important, it is about the fundamentals. A serious, profound book for a thoughtful reader. It will not give you 1-2-3 easy to apply techniques to do this or that. It will do you better - reveal the basics so you can develop your own style and vision (it could take time and efforts, though :)
Rating: 
Summary: An Academic Treatise
Review: I'll keep this review short and sweet. This book is an in-depth academic discussion of how humans see and perceive things. Although there were some interesting tid-bits throughout the book, I wanted to learn how to improve the composition of my photographs, and didn't find anything of use. This book is probably well-suited to a graduate-level psychology course, but for me it has little applicability to photography.
Rating:
Summary: An Academic Treatise
Review: I'll keep this review short and sweet. This book is an in-depth academic discussion of how humans see and perceive things. Although there were some interesting tid-bits throughout the book, I wanted to learn how to improve the composition of my photographs, and didn't find anything of use. This book is probably well-suited to a graduate-level psychology course, but for me it has little applicability to photography.
Rating:
Summary: Amazing book
Review: I'm reading a lot of books on perception and psychology. I know a lot regarding perception. But this book not only filled with so many pictures that explains the written theories right away. This book is just amazing, it is written by a very smart and deep person. Without a doubt, I just love reading this book, and every time that I open it, I find more and more that I can learn from this book. It just taught me so much, in such a short time. The author doesn't waste his time with millions of examples. In some amazing ways, he gives you right away everything that you must know, the secrets of perception and explains it and teache it in such an amazingly simple manner. I'm extremly impress. I didn't expect to find such a book, that I feel must be in my library, and when my children will be older, I will ask them to read it as well. An eye opener, the best!!!!
Rating:
Summary: Amazing book
Review: I'm reading a lot of books on perception and psychology. I know a lot regarding perception. But this book not only filled with so many pictures that explains the written theories right away. This book is just amazing, it is written by a very smart and deep person. Without a doubt, I just love reading this book, and every time that I open it, I find more and more that I can learn from this book. It just taught me so much, in such a short time. The author doesn't waste his time with millions of examples. In some amazing ways, he gives you right away everything that you must know, the secrets of perception and explains it and teache it in such an amazingly simple manner. I'm extremly impress. I didn't expect to find such a book, that I feel must be in my library, and when my children will be older, I will ask them to read it as well. An eye opener, the best!!!!
Rating:
Summary: Beyond Photography and Beyond Me!
Review: Most photography instruction books talk about equipment and subjects. Seldom is there a discussion of the psychological and physiological aspects of the photographer and the viewer in the process of creating and looking at pictures. This book attempts to fill that gap for photographers and other graphic artists with the aim of giving more impact to pictures created by those artists. The contents are wide ranging, with everything from a discussion of Gestalt psychology field grouping to a discussion of the meaning of the "Kilroy was here" signs that proliferated during and after the Second World War. Some of the material may be immediately useful to a photographer such as the discussion of figure and ground. Thinking in these terms may make it easier for the photographer to decide how, or even if, he wants to provide separation to his subject. Other material will require a major mental engagement that could ultimately prove useful. For example there is a lengthy discussion of the use of rhetoric in photography. This will be a new concept for most photographers. Zakia suggests that rhetoric deals with structuring the photograph to alter its message in a certain direction. For example, the photographer can use the rhetorical device of identity to strengthen a picture through repetition. That device should be easily understandable to most photographers. On the other hand using dubitation for opposition (sic!) may leave the photographer wondering what the author is talking about. However, a close reading might reveal that considering this approach may lead to a stronger picture. Finally there is material like the discussion of synesthesia, a situation where one experiences a sensual stimulus, like a sound, in another mode, like vision. While interesting, I failed to see the relevance of this information to the practical photographer. And that is a major shortcoming of this book. The author frequently fails to make a connection between a phenomenon that he is describing and photography. To compound this shortcoming, when he offers a connection to a visual work as an illustration, he does not usually include the work in the book, but rather describes it in writing. For a book on imaging, the failure to include images is shocking. I suppose there are photographers who are so skilled and so intellectual that they could benefit from this material. The rest of us can probably find other guides to better our photography.
Rating:
Summary: Beyond Photography and Beyond Me!
Review: Most photography instruction books talk about equipment and subjects. Seldom is there a discussion of the psychological and physiological aspects of the photographer and the viewer in the process of creating and looking at pictures. This book attempts to fill that gap for photographers and other graphic artists with the aim of giving more impact to pictures created by those artists. The contents are wide ranging, with everything from a discussion of Gestalt psychology field grouping to a discussion of the meaning of the "Kilroy was here" signs that proliferated during and after the Second World War. Some of the material may be immediately useful to a photographer such as the discussion of figure and ground. Thinking in these terms may make it easier for the photographer to decide how, or even if, he wants to provide separation to his subject. Other material will require a major mental engagement that could ultimately prove useful. For example there is a lengthy discussion of the use of rhetoric in photography. This will be a new concept for most photographers. Zakia suggests that rhetoric deals with structuring the photograph to alter its message in a certain direction. For example, the photographer can use the rhetorical device of identity to strengthen a picture through repetition. That device should be easily understandable to most photographers. On the other hand using dubitation for opposition (sic!) may leave the photographer wondering what the author is talking about. However, a close reading might reveal that considering this approach may lead to a stronger picture. Finally there is material like the discussion of synesthesia, a situation where one experiences a sensual stimulus, like a sound, in another mode, like vision. While interesting, I failed to see the relevance of this information to the practical photographer. And that is a major shortcoming of this book. The author frequently fails to make a connection between a phenomenon that he is describing and photography. To compound this shortcoming, when he offers a connection to a visual work as an illustration, he does not usually include the work in the book, but rather describes it in writing. For a book on imaging, the failure to include images is shocking. I suppose there are photographers who are so skilled and so intellectual that they could benefit from this material. The rest of us can probably find other guides to better our photography.
Rating:
Summary: Perception & Imaging, Second Edition
Review: Pete Turner's eye-catching photograph on the cover of Richard Zakia's Perception & Imaging, Second Edition, invites one to pick up the book and examine it, and the text and illustrations between the covers capture the reader's eye and the mind. The objective of the book is clearly stated in the author's preface: "Pictures, regardless of how they are created and recreated, are intended to be looked at. This brings to the forefront not the technology of imaging, which of course is important, but rather what we might call the 'eyenology' (knowledge of the visual process--of seeing). The table of contents provides a good overview of the wide range of topics, which include both the theory and the practice of visual perception, that are covered in the eleven chapters. Some 300 illustrations provide reinforcing connections between the printed words and the visual imagery, and, of course, are indispensable to the discussion of many visual-perception concepts, such as Illusions and Ambiguity (chapter 6). A unique feature of this book is the inclusion of some 400 concise and relevant quotations from almost that many sources, ranging from Ansel Adams and Aristotle, to Edward Weston and Oscar Wilde, that in addition to being interesting and illuminating by themselves, emphasis the universal significance of the related topic. The reader-friendly writing style of the author is a bonus. Dr. Leslie D. Stroebel
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