Interested in Travel Photography? Read this.

I've been cyber-stalking Bethany Salvon of Beers and Beans for a while now, barraging her with questions about photography, exposure, shutter speed, ISO and all the nice words you need to know (and understand) when you really want to capture that moment.

She has always been very patient, answering my questions and probably wondering why I wouldn't read some photography books. Well, the truth is, I did try to read digital photography books, but I somehow stopped half way.

I'm not saying they were not helpful, far from that, all the books I have are very detailed and explain well techniques and stuff, but I couldn't manage to understand and memorize them. Sometimes too technical, sometimes they just took for granted too many terms, I've always abandoned reading them and just kept on with my slow self-learning methods.

So now that Bethany has released her book on travel photography, aptly named Getting Out Of Auto, I couldn't miss it, could I? I've read it in one go, and I can officially state that I've fully understood the difference between exposure and shutter speed, to the extent that I can explain it with my own words and I know what I'm doing when I shoot night time or from a bridge.

This might seem very elementary, and for professionals it certainly is, but I've always been a little confused regarding the two definitions, since both of them are related to the amount of light that enters the camera.

I've often felt I've been taking photos in a sort of "unconscious" way, after reading this book I feel I know what I'm doing.

Bethany doesn't take anything for granted, she explains the basics in a way anybody can understand and gives simple and helpful examples for every situation. After making sure everybody is confident with concepts such as exposure, aperture, shutter speed and ISO, the book dives headfirst into composition and artistic techniques and, most importantly, teaches how to break the rules, because, as Bethany says, "Rules are made to be broken. BUT... You can't successfully break the rules, until you know what it is you are breaking."

All rules, tips and techniques described are matched with photos in order to help readers understand what's the topic of discussion.

This book has been a revelation for me, I got explained what I was doing wrong and how I can get the effects I never managed to obtain (or if I did, it happened accidentally!). My next step will be getting out and putting Bethany's advices into practice as soon as possible so that I'll be well prepared when she will release (because I'm sure she will) her second book about travel photography for more advanced levels. 

To buy the book, click here.