Extreme Perspectives: A Review

Craft and Vision books are always a delight. Cheaper than a magazine, and with far more depth, they always bring something good and interesting. Extreme Perspectives is a little like that. It's certainly not your middle of road travel book, nor is it a book on landscapes. But it does have some of each, as well as people photography. While the premise of the book is photography for climbers and mountaineers, it certainly covers the gamut of lessons needed for extreme or adventure photography.Alexandre Buisse presents a book of advice mixed with some stunning and sometimes frightening photography. While the tone is light, there are plenty of safety warnings in the book. Alexandre begins with a little about his work and his paper and ink book 'Remote Exposure', before diving into Gear and Technique. He explains in great detail about his choice of camera equipment and why it works best for him. I'm not here to spoil it, but his reasoning for what he uses is sound, and is excellent as a basis for any photographer thinking about their equipment. There's plenty of advice on looking after the gear and getting the most of it in the field too.In keeping with a lot of Craft and Vision books, we've had some craft, so it's no surprise that the next section of the book is on Vision. Here we have a discussion on storytelling, but not in any way I've seen before. It's open, honest and so simple that I know I'll be using this in my own landscape work.From there we are onto the bulky bit of the book: Image Studies. This section covers composition of images, showing how to create moods in your shots and even how to shoot in difficult circumstances. Alexandre is also honest about what he feels are mistakes in his work, which is often more beneficial than looking at magnificent photographs. One of the photographs is from a rather nasty drop, giving me a sense of vertigo as I view.In his closing thoughts, we see a little insight into more of Alexandre's thinking. After seeing him talk about leaving in power lines in an earlier photograph, he explains his reasons in detail. There's no dogma about it, merely a statement of opinion. A mention of HDR is done in passing, and then we're done.I found the book an easy read, with nice tips, especially the storytelling. Being adventure related, I can't help feel this will limit the book's general appeal. That said there are some sumptuous photos in the book, and they're worth the price of admission alone. You'd never get me climbing a mountain, but it's wonderful to see photographs from people who do!Extreme Perspectives is on sale at the Craft and Vision site, and is $5. You can get it for $4 until midnight 15th May EST with the code EXTREME4. Also use EXTREME20 for 20% off when you buy 5 or more books from the site.