I just finished reading The Passionate Photographer: Ten Steps Toward Becoming Great by Steve Simon, and I'm happy to say that it's one of the best photography books I've read in years. In the Passionate Photographer, Simon presents 10 things that photographers and those that aspire to photographic greatness can do to to improve their photos. The book includes a discussion about how personal vision fuels photography projects, how to approach and photograph people, learning how to focus (you, not the camera) as you shoot and how to manage your own workflow.

The Passionate Photographer is not a technical book on the how-to of working a camera and the author assumes a level of comfort with photographic concepts, but I wouldn't have it any other way. Examples from his own life and body of work illustrate perfectly the points he makes (and his work is very, very good), and even after 25 years of doing photography I found myself getting excited about picking up a camera.

I don't often buy photography books, and even less often recommend them, but I think that anyone with an interest in photography and taking their own work to the next level can benefit from this book. You can buy a copy of The Passionate Photographer on Amazon, and if you'd like to follow Steve on Twitter he can be found at http://twitter.com/stevesimon