Customer Reviews

Lighting for Portrait Photography

5 star:		(11)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

The book includes explanations of why the photographer went with the approach they did (including the dead-honest "I only had five minutes to set up" in a couple cases). It shows diagram layouts of what lights were used at what angles, which is excellent for learning what the basic layouts are, and giving you a leg up if you want to shoot a portrait and are thinking about how to approach it.

And best of all, it's not all HIS photographs. Most books suffer badly under the weight of a single photographer trying to demonstrate something. By definition, every photographer has a style, and in any "one photographer" book you're going to get a ton about shooting in THEIR style, but almost no diversity of approaches abd styles. That diversity is important in learning the principles that let you develop YOUR OWN style. That's great for booksellers, since you probably have to digest 10-15 books to get enough range to have a sense of what's possible. (Assuming there are 10-15 books that are good - and my bookshelf suggests there aren't.)

As to "not useful for social photography portraits" - if you're looking to shoot school portraits, or families in front of the same backdrops, that's probably true. But if you're looking to do creative portraits with some sizzle and style and snap to them, this book has many examples that you could go duplicate right away. And it'll give you the raw material ideas to come up with 20 other approaches.

The best of the 10 "lighting for..." books on my shelf - more content than all the other 9 put together.

I've bought a couple of lighting books that showed rather complex multi-light setups with hairlights,gobos,booms,backgrounds,barndoors yada,yada,yada that left me thinking "hmmmm,I wonder if I can do this??"
This book displays beautifull portraits with simple ambient light, single light, easy soft box etc. setups with clear setup diagrams with the portrait shown. An example, hardly ordinary, was one shot of Tony Blair where the photographer had literaly 180 seconds to setup for the sitting. It made me feel "hey, I CAN do THAT!".
Simple well written for the contemplative novice(me I hope).

I am a portrait photographer and I pull this book out all the time to review lighting set ups and get inspiration. A definate must have for any photographer. I especially love that the book extensively covers one and two light set up and using foamcore bookends. You don't need a bazillion lights to create amazing images.

I do portrait photography (environmental and studio) and this is the first book of the many I've bought that directly addressed my needs for simple, creative lighting set-ups that can be done quickly -- either with available light or with one or two studio strobes with readily-available accessories. The images are very contemporary and the detailed instructions are easy-to-follow. I've bought a dozen lighting books that have cheesy, 80s photos and complicated set-ups; this one replaces all of them. Recommended for serious amateur and professional photographers, especially if you're using studio strobe lighting.

I've bought three books from this series; the photos are great to inspire you and the lighting set-ups start from simple natural light and move to more complicated, multiple lights. Tells type of lighting used, camera, film, ISO, lens and f-stop and shows diagrams of the set-ups.

The only reason I don't give it a 5 is that they make it look a little too easy...you know, you have angelina jolie come over for an hour, you stick her in a doorway with some natural light on her face, snap a few frames, and voila! perfectly lit portrait.

This book leans towards the "artistic" elements to portrait photography (which I love). If honey dripping and being licked from fingers (non sexual way) or a portrait of a model with egg suspended over her face are not yours (these are the extremes of the book, most others are more realistic)and you are looking for improving your family photos or posing seniors, you may want to look elsewhere, although you will still likely benefit from this book. If you want to see how some very "non ordinary" ie exceptional photographers achieve their results, this is it. I enjoyed it very much and it is basically a diagram book. An image is shown, then little keys show where (and what type) lights, gobos, flags, etc were placed and the cameras settings for the shot are diagrammed -excellent. this makes the book a quick read and a great reference, I've read it once but as soon as I finish a few others I have left to read I've got this on the "return to read" stack.

Also, worth noting for anyone who noticed and may be sensitive to nudity and get the wrong idea. If you click on Amazon's "look inside" feature, in the table of contents section it shows a topless photo (as of this writing).In the revision of the book I have, 2007, purchased from amazon, that photo has been replaced. There aren't any nudes in the book, that I remember. Just in case something like that is offputting to you I thought I'd mention it. In fact I think that photo has no place in the book, not because it's a nude, which is also why, but because it's not up to the caliber of the rest of the book either. There are some flat out great portraits in this one.

This book is the one for you if you are interested in learning to light for art photography. In the second paragraph of the introduction, the author says "if you are intersted in social photography this book is not for you." In other words, if you are interested in taking flattering portraits of family and friends or typical clients, it is not for you. The photographs in the book are very artistic -- one is of a woman with an egg cracked on her face?

Very informative. Just what i was looking for. There's info about what light the different photographers use, and the set ups are very clear and understandable. Very Happy. Thanks

I loved this book it is great, I haven't tried every illustration but I love the layout, and the ones that I did try are excellent I own numerous amouts of portrait books but I find myself reaching for this one the most.

At the middle of last year I opened a photo studio. So, I can say, I'm still beginner int this topic. So, this book was very helpful for me to gt advance knowledge about art of making great photos.