Customer Reviews

The Business of Portrait Photography: A Professional's Guide to Marketing and Managing a Successful Studio, with Profiles of 300 Top Portrait Photogra (Amphoto's Business of Photography)

5 star:		(8)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

The Business of Portrait Photography offers excellent insight for people considering entry into this exciting line of work. I am in the beginning stages of opening my own portrait photograhy business, and found the information in Mr.McDonald's book quite helpful and well-written. It is not easy to find photographers willing to share their experience with newcomers, and this book does exactly that. If you are curious about this field, I highly recommend this book.

This is easily the most helpful and practical book I have every read on operating a photography business.It doesn't just cover the "big picture", although it does that well, going into different philosophies, styles and approaches to business of different photograpers. It covers every practical aspect of the business, going into details other books don't bother mentioning. I wish I had read this book when I started my business it would have saved me a lot of time and money.

Extremely enlightening. This book offerd much information for me. I'm not a beginner, yet not quite a professional, a book like this is capable of filling in the space between the two. The author also utilize the expertise of fellow professional photographers, making it a well rounded book. I must repeat this is definately an Excellent book, easy to read and understand, yet it offered a professioal perspective that did not try to "write over your head" definately a creation of love!

I completely agree with the other positive 5* reviews, and completely disagree with Fribio99's review. This is the best single book I've ever seen on this subject.

This book covers the practical and artistic issues of portrait photography such as equipment, lighting, posing, exposure, diffusion. It then deals with how to handle special subjects like children, pets, couples, groups, and other portrait specialities. It also includes practical chapters on how to manage and improve the business side of the operations.

Finally, the book concludes with "guest appearances" in the form of two- or four-page spreads by 15 other photographers (they largely seem to be couples), so that you get a sense of different styles of portrait photography and different perspectives on how to build a portrait business. Many of these "guests" are truly spectacular artists in their own right, and it is very intersting to read and learn from what they have to say.

A bonus to all this really good information is the stunning variety of really great pictures (mainly in color). Different people have different ideas how a portrait should look, but most mainstream styles are here, and they are beautifully illustrated by a wide and extremely gifted variety of photographers.

If you buy this book and Kodak's "The Portrait," you'll probably never need anything else.

This book is poor and you shouldn't buy it. I'm sure Mr McDonald has had a successful career and photographic business and that transpires from his writings. But his cheesiness in words (only matched by his insufferable cheesiness in portraiture) makes the mere sifting through (let alone the reading) intolerable. If you like Avedon and Irving Penn, don't buy this book. Granted, it was never meant to be a monograph but a book that gave the clues on how to set up a business in photographic portraiture. But it would help, wouldn't it, and it would give some minor credibility if the pictures were at least interesting. and what about the lyrics? take a look at this suggestion for an advertisement of a studio: "BECAUSE YOU LOVE THEM. Life is a panorama filled with many entrances and exits... separations and reunions. So there are Tom McDonald portraits to remember yesterday and the many faces of love." You decide. I just wanted you to avoid my mistake.

This book does have some beautiful portraits, but the information in the book is brief and doesn't go into much detail. It gives a glimpse of what to expect without ant details. McDonalds are great and successful, but this book doesn't match with their knowledge.

I usually don't review books that I'm only half way through, but I thought this book deserves it. While some of the reviews of this book are negative, I don't see where they can come to that conclusion. First, this book is about the business of portrait photography. It is not about how to pose people or what they should wear. Yes, there is a little of that but there are books out there geared towards that and those should be the ones you are looking at. I suggest books by Bill Hurter, Monty Zucker or Ellie Vayo to name a few. I'm planning on doing some portrait work as a side line and some of the plans I made have been covered in this book and made me think that they were not the best ideas. Some have said the pictures are bad in this book. Well, this type of book could have less pictures than it has. The print is fine so there is plenty to read. I think you will learn a lot from this book and it might save you some cash by preventing a mistake down the line.

All of the above reviews state exactly what my feelings are on this book...It is indispensible, a must have for a portrait photographer and the photos are stunning! I had to write a review on this book because it is simply the best book on the topic and I cannot state that enough. As an emerging professional photographer, this book has been the one to truly piece the puzzle together. A wonderful read!

I thought this book was only ok overall. The topics that were discussed were all pretty vague and it seems like common sense would have taken you there anyway. The thing that turned me off most were the pictures themselves, they all seem quite dated and nothing really stands out, except for a few photos in the back of the book where profiles of other photographers around the world have shared their advice on how they run their studios. To me this section was more informative than the rest of the book put together. If you really want to get more ideas and advice, speak to professional photographers in your local or surrounding areas. I find that most photographers are really cool people who just love to talk about their jobs, so i find that more helpful. They will also give you specific tips, like what film they use, where they process, how to start off, who to contact etc. And they really motivate you to get started.

All of the above reviews state exactly what my feelings are on this book...It is indispensible, a must have for a portrait photographer and the photos are stunning! I had to write a review on this book because it is simply the best book on the topic and I cannot state that enough. As an emerging professional photographer, this book has been the one to truly piece the puzzle together. A wonderful read!