The Book of Alternative Photographic Processes
by Christopher James. An excellent standard text for all the alternative photographic processes, this book can be used for anything from figuring out "how did they DO that?" to learning how to do it yourself, and do it well.

The Camera
by Ansel Adams. The Camera, together with The Negative and The Print, comprise the Ansel Adams Photography Series, the very best of all books printed on the art of black and white photography. This series is especially useful for very serious, technically-oriented sorts of photographers, but anyone with an interest in crafting a fine photograph will learn from this series.

Creative Elements
Darkroom Techniques for Landscape Photography, by Eddie Ephraums. Mr. Ephraums shares a great wealth of knowledge of darkroom techniques. He takes the reader step-by-step through his processes in producing 20 of his wonderful black and white landscapes. This book is more than worth it's price just for the toning instructions and fomulae alone.

Examples: The Making of 40 Photographs (Paperback)
by Ansel Adams. Did you ever wonder how in the world Ansel Adams managed to get a particular photograph? In this book he throws aside the usual reticence photographers have in talking about the nuts and bolts of how they made an image and gives you all the details he can remember - which is generally quite a lot of information. This is priceless information for photographers to learn by!

Gradient Light:
The Art and Craft of Using Variable Contrast Paper by Eddie Ephraums.Mr. Ephraums again takes the reader step-by-step through his processes in producing many of his wonderful black and white landscapes, but this time the focus is primarily on how to optimize the print tonalities by taking fullest advantage of variable contrast paper.

Historic Photographic Processes
A Guide to Creating Handmade Photographic Images by Richard Farber. Another excellent book with step-by-step instructions for many of these processes. This is the newest of these books to make it to my bookshelf, and it has a bit more current information on safety and a bit more detailed recipes. 

The Keepers of Light
A History & Working Guide to Early Photographic Processes by William Crawford. An excellent reference book that beautifully blends the history of these processes, the descriptions of how they are done, and reproduced examples of them, while also describing and illustrating historical styles.

Large Format Nature Photography
by Jack Dykinga. This book provides a very personal look at how one marvelous nature photographer works in the field with a 4x5 camera. It is not an all-inclusive manual on using a large format camera but rather is like taking a mental workshop with the photographer - he shows you his photographs, explains what he was trying to do and what methods he used to achieve the results. I'm a huge fan of Dykinga's gorgeous desert landscapes!

Making Digital Negatives for Contact Printing
A Step By Step Guide To Affordable Enlarged Negatives For Platinum, Silver, And Other Printing Processes by Dan Burkholder. The title really does describe the book very well (and yes, affordable really means affordable). By the way, Dan Burkholder is a truly extraordinary artist, as well as being the author of a very methodical and useful text.

The Negative
by Ansel Adams. The Negative, together with The Camera and The Print, comprise the Ansel Adams Photography Series, the very best of all books printed on the art of black and white photography. This series is especially useful for very serious, technically-oriented sorts of photographers, but anyone with an interest in crafting a fine photograph will learn from this series.

The Print
by Ansel Adams. The Print, together with The Camera and The Negative , comprise the Ansel Adams Photography Series, the very best of all books printed on the art of black and white photography. This series is especially useful for very serious, technically-oriented sorts of photographers, but anyone with an interest in crafting a fine photograph will learn from this series.