Los Angeles Valley College Library: OER: Open Educational Resources: Photography

Textbooks

Open Content Photography Program by Various Authors (2018): WikiBooks

The Open Content Photography Program is being built to help people to learn professional photography. It is not a book about photography, it's a book about learning photography on your own.

Introduction to Digital Photography by Lawrence Neuberger (2018): SUNY.

Learn and master the basic features of your camera to gain better control of your photos. Individualized chapters on each of the cameras basic functions as well as cheat sheets you can download and print for use while shooting. Covers technical functioning of digital cameras, focusing modes, white balance, aperture, shutter speed, ISO, composition, creativity and ways to add effects to your images using the camera itself.

SUNY

The Photographer's Guide to Copyright by PhotoShelter & The American Society of Media Photographers (2013):
ASMP.

Get tips to keep your work safe, plus read in-depth interviews from photographers and experts from ASMP, including Executive Director Eugene Mopsik and General Counsel and Managing Director Vic Perlman, who address: Major trends in copyright today. How to make copyright registration part of your workflow. The risks to weigh before posting your photos to social networks. What counts as “Fair Use”, plus major learnings from recent court cases. Copyright for motion and video. What it takes to bring an infringement case to court and ways to avoid it. Also check out the guide for a long list of additional resources to learn more about copyright for photographers.

ASMP (free download)

Ultimate Field Guide to Photography by National Geographic (2002): National Geographic.

This free PDF is a selection from the larger text by Bob Martin. With straightforward explanations of both simple, all-but-foolproof equipment like inexpensive autofocus point-and-shoot cameras and of sophisticated lenses. It also covers important accessories; provides advice of all kinds, from key facts and basic tips for beginners to advanced techniques for skilled amateurs; and addresses the essentials of editing, scanning and printing, effective archiving, and more. Along with digital information, there's also plenty of material on traditional film, from old techniques to helpful sidebars on when to use film rather than digital.

National Geographic (free download)

The Bastards Book of Photography by Dan Nguyen (2012): Dan Nguyen.

This book doesn’t focus a lot on the science or technical details (e.g. I describe aperture as “a hole that light passes through”). I plan on adding more lessons and topics but the goal is to simplify the concepts and explain as much through visual examples. The route we’ll take is to learn how to move past depending on your camera’s automatic mode and onto operating its manual settings. Another way to phrase it is: Learn how to take photos without using your camera’s flash. This isn’t out of a stubborn conceit for doing things the “old-fashioned” way. It doesn’t matter how advanced camera phones get or how much a single button-tap captures; photography will always be profoundly affected by how you, the button pusher, is able to thoughtfully adjust to light and motion and subject.

Online (HTML) Textbook

Digital Foundations: Introduction to Media Design with the Adobe Creative Cloud - Revised Edition by xtine
burrough and Michael Mandiberg (2017): Open Oregon Educational Resources.

Digital Foundations uses formal exercises of the Bauhaus to teach the Adobe Creative Suite. All students of digital design and production—whether learning in a classroom or on their own—need to understand the basic principles of design in order to implement them using current software. Far too often design is left out of books that teach software for the trade and academic markets. Consequently, the design software training exercise is often a lost opportunity for visual learning. This revised edition updates the original text for use with Adobe Creative Cloud 2017 software.

Remote Capture: Digitising Documentary Heritage in Challenging Locations by Jody Butterworth, Andrew Pearson,
Patrick Sutherland and Adam Farquhar (2018): Open Book Publishers Cambridge.

From establishing the scope of the project, via practical considerations about equipment, work routines, staffing, and negotiating local politics, to backing up your data and successfully completing your work, Remote Capture walks you through every stage. Bursting with helpful hints, advice and experiences from people who have completed projects everywhere around the globe from Latin America to Africa to Asia, this book offers a taste of the challenges you might encounter and the best ways to find solutions. With a particular focus on the process of digitisation, whether using a camera or a scanner, Remote Capture is invaluable reading for anybody considering such a project. It will be particularly useful to those who apply for an EAP grant, but the advice in these pages is necessary for anyone wondering how to go about digitising an archive.

Open Book Publishers

Courses

Cameras, Exposure, and Photography (Coursera)
Welcome to Course One of Photography Basics and Beyond: From Smartphone to DSLR! In these first 4 Modules you will gain the knowledge and the confidence that will help you make good choices as you consider qualities of the camera you own, and the qualities of the other types of digital cameras you might be considering. You will learn about the basic functions that most digital cameras have in common. You will also go beyond the "technical" matters and learn about how you can make exciting pictures by emphasizing the aspects of Frame and Vantage Point to interpret old subjects in new ways.
Documentary Photography and Photojournalism: Still Images of a World in Motion (MIT OpenCourseWare)
In this course, you will be exposed to the work of many great documentary photographers and photojournalists, as well as to writing about the documentary tradition. Further, throughout the term, you will hone your photographic skills and 'eye,' and you will work on a photo documentary project of your own, attempting to reduce a tiny area of the moving world to a set of still images that convey what the viewer needs to know about what you saw—without hearing the sounds, smelling the odors, experiencing what was happening outside the viewfinder, and without seeing the motion.
Introduction to Digital Photography
This free online digital photography course will introduce you to the most important functions and techniques of digital photography and your digital camera. Lots of people have digital cameras but few know how to use them. This course will teach you how to operate the various features of your digital camera, and how to take the right shot for every occasion. Take this free online course today to supercharge your digital photography skills.
Introduction to Photography and Related Media (MIT OpenCourseWare)
This course provides practical instruction in the fundamentals of analog and digital SLR and medium/large format camera operation, film exposure and development, black and white darkroom techniques, digital imaging, and studio lighting.
Introductory Photography Course
I've been running this 1 day photography course around Australia & New Zealand since 2009, helping several thousand people gain more enjoyment from their passion - one small group at a time. However, as we're now busier than ever running our Photography Tours, time has come to throw open the doors and let everyone enjoy it! Divided into sequential sections, each video features plenty of examples, animations and easy-to-understand explanations to guide you right through from basic camera setup and composition, to aperture, shutter speed, exposure compensation, ISO, lighting, lenses, histograms, white balance and so much more! The first 5 parts are ready to watch for FREE!
Photography Basics and Beyond: From Smartphone to DSLR Specialization (Coursera)
Whether your camera is a Smartphone or DSLR, a Compact or Mirrorless model, you will learn to gain control of exposure and understand fundamentals of composition, while exploring documentary and creative concepts to make the kinds of photographs you have always wanted. This Specialization covers a broad range of fundamental principles in photography, from camera control to principles of composition and creativity, providing you with a foundation for growth in making photographs you’ll be proud to share.
Photography Techniques: Light, Content, and Sharing (Coursera)
Here in Course Four you will start by gaining knowledge related to content in photography, from fact to fiction, documentary to purely expressive. Next you will learn principles, tips, and techniques for using the essential element of Light in Ambient/Natural settings. The flash/strobe unit, whether it is built-in to your camera or an add-on "hotshoe" model, will finally be something you, not the camera, controls! You will prove to yourself that those former mysteries of Controlled Continuous and Strobe lighting will no longer be mysterious, as you apply your knowledge to creation of assignment photographs in various situations. Sharing those pictures in Peer Review will give you the opportunity to learn from your fellow photographers' solutions to lighting challenges, and to gain insight into your own work and creative approaches too.
Seeing Through Photographs (Coursera)
In this course you will look closely at 100 photographs from the collection of The Museum of Modern Art, going behind the scenes of the Museum and into artist studios through original films and audio interviews. You will hear a variety of perspectives on the ways photography has been used throughout its 180-year history: as a means of artistic expression, a tool for science and exploration, an instrument of documentation, a way to tell stories and record histories, and a mode of communication and critique. Short texts and readings from MoMA publications provide enhanced context for the works in the course.