The second book in the series is "Lighting". Artists paint with oils or watercolours, photographers paint with light. It is the fundamental ingredient of every photo. How a shot is lit can greatly change the way it affects the viewer. It is the most essential of all photographic tools, but it can be notoriously difficult to control (unless you have access to a studio), so this book aims to teach the reader how to make the best of every lighting situation. The book will be split into sections, which will focus on the basics: natural light, controlled light, artificial light and capturing light. The final section covers different methods of capturing images using light creatively, such as cameraless images (known as photograms) or how to make use of the Bulb function to produce special lighting effects. The book as a whole, but particularly this final section, will be extremely inspirational to students and those wishing to push their creative boundaries.
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About the Author
David Prakel has enjoyed a diverse career as a journalist and magazine editor, a publishing consultant, music aficionado and latterly, as an educator. He runs his own photographic training workshops in Northumberland and is a part-time lecturer at Cumbria Institute of the Arts. His books are internationally recognized as ideal started texts.
David Präkel has enjoyed a successful and diverse career in journalism, photography and education and has taught at all academic levels in both the UK and the US as well as at the prestigious Kodak Imaging Training Centre in Harrow, London.
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David Prakel was born and schooled in the North of England. He was given his first camera at the age of 9 and photography has played a central role in his life ever since. After studying Psychology at the University of Manchester he enjoyed a successful and diverse career in journalism, photography and education. A natural communicator, he spent a sabbatical year in America teaching photography in night class and youth programs in Rochester, NY. On return to the UK he taught the subject at all levels in universities, colleges, schools and at the prestigious Kodak Imaging Training Centre in Harrow.
He now runs his own photographic training workshops in Northumberland (Centre of Britain PhotoWorkshops Partnership). His books on photographic composition, lighting and black-and-white photography are published in the AVA Academia series and are internationally recognised as ideal starter texts. An avid collector of early Polaroid cameras and snapshots from the era, he also hopes to publish on this subject soon. He never has enough time for his own photography.
He now runs his own photographic training workshops in Northumberland (Centre of Britain PhotoWorkshops Partnership). His books on photographic composition, lighting and black-and-white photography are published in the AVA Academia series and are internationally recognised as ideal starter texts. An avid collector of early Polaroid cameras and snapshots from the era, he also hopes to publish on this subject soon. He never has enough time for his own photography.
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4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Best Lighting Book Ever,
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This review is from: Basics Photography: Lighting (Paperback)
Lighting by David Prakel is simply the best of the approximately 20 books I have on this subject. I do a lot of table top shooting in the form of product shots that I use for magazine articles I write and this includes a lot of PC boards that I design. I was never pleased with the lighting as I am a perfectionist, but with this book it solved many unresolved problems.As an example, many books cover filters but this book does so in an absolute minimum number of words allowing superb illustrations and photos to clearly demonstrate these otherwise abstract even obtuse principles. The drawings are so detail and allow you to clearly understand and clearly see the effects of various placements of lighting, and how variations will affect the subject. I never really understood what the KR numbers meant on certain filters, such as those made by B&W, but now I know, plus the section on filters shows their equivalents and how the light source and filter combined will yield a certain color temperature. The section on color theory is also just so clear and the manner in which it is illustrated and presented is simply nothing short of the best imaginable. Many books try to skimp on printing costs and it the end it shows, but this is not the case here, the book publisher obviously worked closely in concert with the author and did not tell him "sorry, that would be too expensive to preset in that manner." If you buy this lesser known that that popular book by sheer number of volumes sold, you will not be disappointed. Incidentally, I also bought Prakel's book on Composition and it is equally as good as this book. If you see David Prakel's name on any book, you might give it a look as his thorough style and ease with words makes difficult things seems simple. As an electrical engineer and technical writer I strive to do the same, and the jury is still out on my results, but they have already returned a most favorable critique on this book.
4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Lighting Essencials Well Presented,
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This review is from: Basics Photography: Lighting (Paperback)
I don't know how many people are like me: I've got a reasonable DSLR that provides enough technical controls and delivers good image quality; I've learnt about stuff like aperture priority/shutter priority and different kinds of metering modes and have done exercises as a hobbyist. At some point, I felt the quality of my photos stagnate, they look like every other image on cheap postcards. After reading this book, I realized that lacking of good sense for natural lighting and lacking of knowledge of how to control artificial lighting was the problem.This book is an excellent guide to understanding of the essentials of lighting: Which factors affects the lighting for landscape and architecture; What properties do "available lights" (for example street lights) have and how to make most of them; How are lights in studios set up for different categories of shootings (portrait, product packing, arty still life, etc). Some really exquisite lightings such as Rembrandt lighting and film lighting are also shortly explained with illustrations. Typical studio lights (the hardware) and their typical usage are also introduced with photos. Text in the book is concise and focused without unnecessary smalltalks (personally I just do not like the writing style of the bestseller book "The Digital Photography Book".), accompanied with a lot of example images. _Many_ technical sketches illustrating how the lighting was setup are just next to the example images. To me the examples and sketches are invaluable. A book like this cannot give answers too all lighting setups you will need. But it explains the essentials really well. The quantity of examples and sketches in the book is just enough for studying closely and making sensible adjustment under particular situation. If one can internalize the content in this book and make a lot of exercises, she would definitely see improvement in her ever stagnated images. This book talked almost nothing about retouching, but the knowledge I learnt from this book helped me in one way or another even when I was trying to retouch my photos. If you are already an imaging professional, maybe you don't need this book. For hobbyists or learners like me, I cannot recommend this book more. Even for absolute starters who knows nothing about focal length or DOF, this book helps. -Ellen PS: The version I read was this book's German translation (published by Addision-Wesley)"Licht und Beleuchtung". I suppose normally the translators wouldn't alter the writing style of the original text.
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Very good... but buy "Composition" first,
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This review is from: Basics Photography: Lighting (Paperback)
David Prakel is excellent at explaining the more theoretical side of photography, something that appealed to me, since every book nowadays simply goes into which button to press and the bells and whistles of you camera, and not actually photography.This book won't help you understand your camera better; it'll help you become a better photographer. I personally recommend getting Basics Photography: Composition first and seeing if that is your thing, since that's much more applicable to everyone than complex dramatic lighting. If you like this kind of stuff already, get them both.
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