This book is the result of years of photographic experience but, as always, it’s not just my book. Thanks as always to God, who has inspired His ultimate creation, mankind, to fuse science and art into photography.

Thanks also to my family, for their patience when I said, “Just one more shot, please,” and for learning (even at a very young age) to ignore the camera so I could get better photos. A special shout-out to the newest members of the family, Jondi, Katie, and Amelia. And to the other photographers in the family: my Grandfather Soper, who gave me my first 35mm camera (an Argus C3); my Grandfather Jayne, who worked for Ansco and was a part-time professional photographer; my dad, who paid for innumerable rolls of film during my high school days and lent me his prized Zeiss-Ikon Contessa; and the younger generation: Ian (for his adventures in extreme low-light photography) and Jeremy (for a great picture of Flower, the cat). And many thanks to Cheryl, who’s always been there for me, even back in the darkroom days: much love.

I also want to thank the editorial and design team that Que put together for this book: thanks to Anne, Patrick, Tonya, Ken, Dan, and Cindy for working together to create a book small enough to carry but big enough to be useful; technical editor Jay Townsend (who also provided some photos and provided review services); technical reviewers John Freeland and Matt Thomas; and Greg Wiegand, for green-lighting the project. Finally, a big thank you to Rick Kughen, for 10 years of working together on book projects. May there be many more!