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13 of 13 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Great Beginner's Book, April 16, 2008
This review is from: Photographing Your Family: And All the Kids and Friends and Animals Who Wander Through Too (National Geographic Photography Field Guides) (Paperback)
You know how you used to take lousy photos with your old film cameras, but then the digital revolution came along and you finally bought an expensive, feature-laden 10MP digital SLR and you suddenly find yourself... still taking lousy photos?
Yes, because it doesn't matter what kind of camera you have. You still need to learn a few hints and tips to use it properly. A photographer with good skills could get amazing images out of a pin-hole camera.
The wonderfully clear and simple new National Geographic book, Photographing Your Family, provides just about everything you need to know about taking great pictures of your kids, spouse, friends, pets, and whoever else you point your camera at. Award-winning photographer Joel Sartore offers his guidance and tips on subjects ranging from light to composition to printing. More importantly, on every page of the book he features examples of his own images. There is no better way to learn photography than to study the work of others. Sartore's accompanying text is easy to understand for a beginner, but detailed enough for those who might need a refresher. My 9-year-old son even enjoyed looking through it, and picked up a few techniques he can use right away.
So, stop taking lousy photos. Instead, take the time to learn a few things so you can start having fun with your camera. Photographing Your Family is the best book I've seen for helping the average person capture those special family moments that belong in a photo album. Highly recommended!
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4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Excellent guide to people photography for new and experienced photographers alike, September 10, 2009
This review is from: Photographing Your Family: And All the Kids and Friends and Animals Who Wander Through Too (National Geographic Photography Field Guides) (Paperback)
I really enjoyed reading John Healey and Joel Sartore's book on family photography. The title is a bit lengthy, as there are small sections on photographing pets, but it's mainly about people photography. I hesitate to use the term "portrait", as most of the pictures shewn here are informal, and aim to capture family members doing the things they do every day.
The book contains a useful guide to novice photographers about using cameras, with information about focal depth, shutter speeds and apertures together with some gimmicky features many digital camera manufacturers include. The emphasis is more on digital photography over film, which is probably a fair balance these days. It's interesting that the book was published in March 2008 and already some of the technical information seems out of date. But this doesn't really matter, because what I wanted the book for was ideas about how to photograph people, and a few examples of techniques and results.
National Geographic photographer Joel Sartore has shared many pictures of his wife, children and parents with us, so much so that by the end of the book we feel almost as if we know the family. This is a mark of the success of his picture-taking, because the shots contained here are not just a selection of posed portraits, but shapshots of the family going about their daily life. As well as children laughing, there's children crying, his mum showing her superb-looking roast dinner, his daughter having her ear pierced and son having his haircut. There is also a poignant photo' of his wife during her treatment for cancer, which reminds us that we ought not to just document half of our lives, but need reminders of the bad times as well. John Healey, the principal writer of the text, is also a photographer and his thorough understanding of the subject and user-friendly explanation blends well with Sartore's photographs. I recommend this book to anyone who likes taking family pictures, as they will certainly find some new ideas here.
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4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Interesting and informative, easy to read...., April 27, 2009
This review is from: Photographing Your Family: And All the Kids and Friends and Animals Who Wander Through Too (National Geographic Photography Field Guides) (Paperback)
This book is about how to take good PHOTOGRAPHS, not portraits, of your family. The author has a documentary, photojournalistic style.
The first part of the book discusses the basics of composition - no surprises here (rule of thirds, backgrounds/foregrounds, pov, light, etc...), although the author strongly emphasizes the idea of taking photographs that represent what life is REALLY like, not staged photos, or those group pictures of everyone close together on holidays.
My favorite part of the book is the gallery, where he showcases dozens of photographs and discusses what he was thinking when he composed and shot each picture. There is a poignant photograph in here of his wife resting in bed, sick with cancer. This picture really exemplifies the author's entire mantra of"show life as it is". I think I will always want to beautify things a bit, but I cannot deny the power of recording daily family life as it occurs, and I will make a more concerted effort to do.
Anyway, I would have liked to see camera detail - ISO, shutter speed, aperture, etc... - but that unfortunately is not included for any of the photographs.
Finally, the book includes a basic introductory section about the digital darkroom, and printing/displaying/storing digital photographs that would be of benefit to those new to digital photography.
All in all, a lovely, interesting book.
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