I recently purchased a couple of photography books after deciding that I wanted to try to improve my compositional game a little. One of the books I chose, mainly because the title matched my idea of what I might be looking for, was called ‘How to read a photograph’ by Ian Jeffery. Having got it home and started reading through it I realized it wasn’t anything like I expected, and did very little to give me a better idea of how to deconstruct someone else’s pictures.

What it DID do though, more importantly, was to make me realize that all too often my desire to take a picture stems from purely aesthetic considerations such as color, geometry, or something visually interesting on a surface level. It made me realize that there is very little ‘why’ to my photography, and could easily account for why I struggle with street photography at times.

So, I’m hoping that my fellow photographic redditors might have some recommendations for books that could help me with ideas for any of the following:

• how to look at a scene or event which is unfolding and pick out details and other elements which help with visual storytelling - ie, how to improve my observational skills.
• books on visual storytelling itself, possibly including elements such as how color and shadow influence an image, or other compositional ‘tricks’ or exercises to convert ideas or themes.
• a breakdown of different photographers and their styles, but in a less dry and more succinct manner than Mr. Jeffrey’s book which I found a little vague.
• other elements or concepts which have helped the non-geometric side of the composition or storytelling in your work, or anything you think I might have added to this list if I was aware of it.

I imagine this is all a fairly significant component of what is taught in photography school, something I’d like to do at some point but don’t currently have the time to invest in to that degree.

Thanks in advance for any and all suggestions!