Show HN: The Bastards Book of Photography

As an introduction, I like it. It's reasonably non-technical and generally errs on the right side of practicality vs theory

This is brilliant. Far better and more accessible than most photography books I've seen.

Good work. Would love a kindle version.

I've seen some of Dan's great photos before and it's awesome to be able to learn from him. Some of the advice he gives are things I've learned myself and explained to people before, and much of it is also new so I'm pretty excited to get through this properly.

One thing I would add, having been through this before myself and seeing my girlfriend going through it now as she takes up photography, is dealing with how people respond to your photos.

It can be disheartening when you take what you think is a great shot and nobody else (on Facebook, reddit/r/itookapicture, Flickr, etc.) seems to be interested. These feelings can be exaggerated when you see the photo that everybody is talking about is a simple cat photo or of some exotic location or event you're unlikely to find yourself in.

It's important not to allow yourself to feel discouraged.You have to just stick to your hobby for the original reason you picked up the camera in the first place and not to allow yourself to side-tracked by a lack of validation. It's important to seek out the opportunities leading to photos that you treasure and to remember that if others also enjoy your output that's a bonus, but not a healthy goal.

I'm not sure if Dan has experienced this (he may not have been concerned by what others think), but I believe it could be greatly beneficial to bring this mindset to the attention of readers so that if they find themselves feeling discouraged that they are aware of what's going on and how to deal with it constructively.

Good to see a book about something else than programming!

Be careful about night shots of the Eiffel tower though: there are some copyright issues. See http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eiffel_Tower for more info.