Hundreds of beautiful color photographs show how to master photography's most popular subject: the art of portraiture. By combining traditional photographic skills with the limitless possibilities offered by digital, this expert guide helps amateurs successfully portray people in the rituals of daily life, frame the figure in the image, utilize high-speed techniques to catch memorable moments, and create a picture essay to document an event. Find out a variety of ways to photograph groups, babies, and children; capture the fleeting expression; and get the right lighting for character and drama. Follow the tips for shooting unobserved on the street and doing reportage; for using wide-angle or medium telephoto techniques; and for dealing respectfully with other cultures. Be the photographer whom everyone wants to record family gatherings, weddings, and other special occasions. And, of course, there's also advice on taking a formal portrait, including how to set up a makeshift studio.
Michael Freeman, professional photographer and author, with more than 100 book titles to his credit, was born in England in 1945, took a Masters in geography at Brasenose College, Oxford University, and then worked in advertising in London for six years. He made the break from there in 1971 to travel up the Amazon with two secondhand cameras, and when Time-Life used many of the pictures extensively in the Amazon volume of their World's Wild Places series, including the cover, they encouraged him to begin a full-time photographic career.
Since then, working for editorial clients that include all the world's major magazines, and notably the Smithsonian Magazine (with which he has had a 30-year association, shooting more than 40 stories), Freeman's reputation has resulted in more than 100 books published. Of these, he is author as well as photographer, and they include more than 40 books on the practice of photography - for this photographic educational work he was awarded the Prix Louis Philippe Clerc by the French Ministry of Culture. He is also responsible for the distance-learning courses on photography at the UK's Open College of the Arts.
Freeman's books on photography have been translated into fifteen languages, and are available on other Amazon international sites.
They are supported for readers by a regularly updated site, http://thefreemanview.com
