Suggestions needed for beginner books

As the title states, I'm looking for suggestions for beginner photography books or websites, especially those that would be helpful in photographing DDs. Would that be considered portrait photography? I'm interested in composition, lighting, basic camera stuff -- I'm very much a noob.

photographing DDs. Would that be considered portrait photography?

 

Yes, very much so.

Sometimes important difference is the fact, that our model is 3 times smaller than the actual person.

So to achieve the same Field Of View we have to be 3 times closer - and this often requires to use macrophotography techniques and macro lenses, because regular ones may not be able to focus.

Or we shoot from further distance and crop the final result.

 

Well, the net is full of tutorials, like here:

http://www.nikonusa.com/Learn-And-Explore/Photography-Techniques/index.page

(the fundamentals for film cameras, digicams and DSLRs are the same, they differ in more technical details)

or here:

This was really helpful for me:

http://strobist.blogspot.com/2006/03/lighting-101.html

 

Also for Christmas I got the book 'Light It Shoot It Retouch It' which has some nice lighting setups and gear suggestions. The focus is mostly portraits in a studio setting. There're a lot of Photoshop processes the author does which may or may not be useful to you. I prefer to do very minor adjustments, but it could be good for photostories.

 

I think that portrait photography is probably a better angle to investigate than macro or still life. Doll faces and bodies have similar challenges to human subjects

For beginner concepts, I know it sounds a bit cliche, but kenrockwell.com is a wealth of pretty simple starter information, regardless of the kind of camera you're shooting (despite him being partial to nikons) or what you're shooting, I know even for an intermediate-ish photographer such as myself, delving into some of the less visible parts of the site, I've come away with a few tips that I now integrate all the time when I take photos :3 Just ignore all the various techy bits he gets to try out, while neat are not really important.

I really love the book Understanding Exposure by Bryan Peterson. A friend of mine recommended it when I mentioned that I was interested in learning more about photography. It is really easy to understand and so useful. I want to recommend it to everyone, ever.

I really love the book Understanding Exposure by Bryan Peterson. A friend of mine recommended it when I mentioned that I was interested in learning more about photography. It is really easy to understand and so useful. I want to recommend it to everyone, ever.

 

Thanks, I will look at ordering it. I'm sort of old-fashioned in that I prefer to have a book for reference and flipping through over a web page.