Book excerpt: A convenient guide for practicing clinicians who take clinical photographs for documentation, teaching, publication, and medical-legal purposes. Written by physicians and professional medical photographers, this handbook discusses the equipment, principles, and techniques used to take effective medical photographs. It will equip health care providers with the skills they need to obtain excellent clinical images, reproductions of radiographs, and other data such as ECGs. Comparisons of the various images can be made to determine changes in medical conditions. Beginners and experienced users alike will benefit from chapters pertaining to their specific needs. An important section on Technique by Body Location discusses how to take photographs of all parts of the body. The reader simply turns to the information that describes the technique of the body location of interest, reviews the brief text, intended results, and illustrations which demonstrate the technique, and he/she is equipped to take the photograph. 350 high-quality original line drawings created especially for this book (200 of these are in full color) Includes procedures for operating room photography, medical photojournalism, forensic photography, digital cameras in medical photography, and medical image archival and storage Distinguished teachers, authors, illustrators, and lecturers, in medical photography have contributed their expertise to produce this book