Customer Reviews

The Photographer's Guide to the Studio

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I purchased this as a bargain bin book and was simply hoping to get a few ideas from it. From that perspective, I did get a still-life idea or two that I'll work on in the future. That is all I got from it however.

I can't give the book high marks as a studio tutorial because frankly it is not very good. The text is introductory and gives a broad overview of studio lighting, posing, and composition but is nothing spectacular. The images in the book fall way short. Many of them were almost certainly shot in the 1970s or early 80s, yet the book is copyrighted in 2002. Many of the pictures are very, very HORRID. It is hard to take anything the authors say very seriously when the pictures are so bad. The book was written for film-based cameras, lenses, and accessories instead of digital; however, I expected as much and was hoping to pick up tips on lighting equipment irrespective of medium. Unfortunately, The Photographer's Guide to the Studio is not much of a guide to anything of any detail.

This won't be a thorough review because I couldn't get past the rank amateur nature of the photos. Usually photos draw one in to read the text. In this book's case I was so put off by the photos that I didn't want to hear anything the photographer/author had to say about studio photography. What it boils down to is a bad aesthetic sense on the part of the photographer coupled with only an adequate product presented as examples of studio work. I was VERY glad I purchased this second hand and didn't blow $24 on it.