THE RISE OF THE EBOOK

Adventure & Travel Photography, by Aaron Black // $16.95, aaronblack.com

Taking pictures of your friends climbing is easy. Taking pictures of your friends climbing that don’t suck? Now that’s hard. If you want to emulate the pros, check out Adventure Photography and Travel, an eBook that combines vivid photos and concise instructions, split up by lively stories about sketchy hobo train trips and humbling helicopter rescues. It’s one part education and one part inspiration, and it’s full of handy tips if you ever plan to submit pics to UCMag. (And the author should know — Black’s images have been in and on the cover of UC.) The book’s 143 PDF pages span technical and creative aspects of adventure photography, from how to use fi lters and fl ashes, to how to optimize your digital images, to how best to compose a scene. Three chapters focus on shooting rock and mountain sports — climbing, snowboarding, and mountaineering — and he covers everything from transporting the camera to setting up portrait shoots. Step 1: download this eBook. Step 2: get out there and shoot!

Tuolumne Bouldering, by Chris Summit // $16.95 (print; $14.95 as an eBook), supertopo.com

This 72-page, full-color guide to the knobby, slabby, and super-historic high-altitude (read: summer) California bouldering spot selects the 20 finest zones and offers up the dirt (topos, photos, and basic info) on the best problems from each zone (275 in all). The author, Chris Summit, makes the “best-of” selection, and also offers his thanks to early Tuolumne developers Ron Kauk and the late John Bachar for their help with the book (both stone masters wrote brief intros to the guide). A clear, simple guide, Tuolumne Bouldering will get you to the classics of your choice in short order, and even offers time-of-day recommendations (Tenaya Lake, for example, gets all-day sun) and all the data you’ll need on transportation, camping, and food. This book is a perfect way to get in, climb great problems, and get out with a big grin on your face.