Customer Reviews

The Portrait Photographer's Guide to Posing

5 star:		(15)
4 star:		(12)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

I used to think should never judge a book for the cover. But this time I was wrong.
The book is plenty of average wedding photos. It's a sort of frustrating to try to be inspired by a book where the pictures are so standard, conservative and uncreative.
But the worst of all is that there is almost no direct relation between most of the pictures and the text. They are no real examples of what the text describes and there are only a few schemas for covering the topics explained.

I wanted a posing book but only a few chapters cover this area. For me 70% was un-useful information. Sometimes the author tries to teach you about depth of field or how to use a ladder and the possible complications you can having using it.
If I wanted to read about lighting, well then I would buy a lighting book written by a master of lighting. For example, this guy don't know the existence of the big and expensive studio/fashion ring flashes and he adjudge the circular catch lights in fashion portraits to powerless macro ring flashes.

This book should be named: "The Wedding Portrait Photographer, a basic guide to photography".

I don't give this book one star because, yes!, there is still very useful posing information on it.

I received this book today from Amazon and will be returning it tomorrow.

The author has assembled some stunning pertraits and surrounded them with a trite attempt at an essay explaining pow to pose people for portraits.

Mr. Hurter doesn't carry it off. The portraits are often beautiful, but there is no explanation of how they were acheived. The captions are often ridiculous and read like a museum curator's strained attempt at reading meaning into a canvas of paint drippings.

The narrative is ofen just plain silly as when Hurter speaks of image stablization lenses that have very limited application to portraiture. Statements such as "Most photographers agree that a pleasant, happy expression is considered more desirable than a big smile" aren't worth paying money for.

In sum, the serious student of photographic portraiture will find nothing of value in this book.

Jerry

If you have a (digital) camera, you're not a pro or advanced amateur and you're shooting your family or friends, read this or a similar book. However, the picture samples don't support the text. That's the big problem of this book to me. Mr. Hurter has put together a decent text that explains the rules of posing but there are no pictures with these rules clearly applied. Even worse, some of the pictures are the exceptions that **break the rules**. It doesn't seem to be the efficient way to teach somebody the basics.
So, I decided to read the book by not paying attention to the pictures and then to go back and try to get any value from the samples I paid for too.

I bought this book because of the wide variety of images shown and discussed, and also because of how well the sections covered typical topics. While not a quick reference guide (like "Posing Techniques for Digital Portraits" by Jeff Smith), I enjoy owning this book because even flipping through the images prompts me to think about posing creatively while portraying my subject in the best way possible.

While the images are not directly referenced in the text that I noticed, that was ok with me -- I was not looking for a cookie cutter approach on "how to pose." The table of contents is descriptive and allows you to easily find the section you are interested in. In order to get the most from this book you will need some time to sit and read through the sections -- skimming probably won't allow you get a comprehensive understanding of the techniquest described in the text.

This book also reviews composition techniques (the golden mean)and discusses the camera angle in relation to the film plane (useful to remember when photographing large groups). Both of these topics provided helpful diagrams to illustrate the concepts.

If you are looking for a book that gives examples of "good" and "bad" poses/shots, this one is not for you. But, if you are interested in reading about the techniques and concepts behind posing, then you will probably enjoy this book for its creative images and in-depth discussion of posing techniques.

Upon opening The Portrait Photographer's Guide to Posing I was presented with a stunning photo of an exuberant bride and I realized immediately that I could learn much from this book. I was not disappointed as I learned many subtleties about positioning the face, placing the hands and fingers and identifying flaws and working around them, etc.

The book is illustrated with extraordinary photography from many masters of portrait photography. The work is so beautiful and the text so insightful that it pulled me along turning pages like it was a new Dean Koontz novel.

I didn't think that posing was a subject that warranted an entire book but I am proved wrong by the Guide to Posing and I look forward to applying what I learned in my work.

This book did not meet my expectations. The text and pictures seemed to belong to different books. Hurter writes how a person should not be posed, but most of the images in the book break those rules! I wanted to see pictures that illustrate the text. I would recommend Posing for Portrait Photography: A Head-to-Toe Guide by Jeff Smith instead. The pictures aren't quite as lovely and artistic as the ones in this book, but Smith shows you what he means.

This book may provide some info to the totally ignorant snapper, but any decent amateur already knows these things. Moreover many concepts are not even clearly explained, and all the photos are rarely linked to the text. The useful info could have been enclosed in 20 pages booklet!
As an outstanding example of superficiality, 90% of featured photos are digital, and no consideration is due to the choice of film (while portraiture often requires medium and large format films).

This book had wonderful photos and helpful text.
However, while the photos were all really great, they tended to be breaking the rules that were being described in the text. As a professional or serious amature photographer one might understand how to follow the rules. However, as a beginning photographer I would really like to see photos that follow the rules being described.

The author throughout the book does a good job of explaining how the photos in the book were taken. He also does a good job of describing good posing technique. The photographs in the book are amazing but none or very few of the photographs are made by the author of the book you are reading which I feel is a disappointment. I feel it is important to see the work of the person from whom you are taking advice. If this is Bill Hurter's book then I want to see some of Bill Hurter's work in the book. The author does a great job of adding verity to his book on posing by explaining how lighting and camera position effect the overall look of the portrait. He briefly discusses shutter speed and aperture as well. Overall I give this book a high rating because the author seems to know what he is talking about it is just to bad he does not "show" us through his own photography.

The title of this book is slightly misleading. It's not a strictly posing guide but and all-around handbook on portraits. It covers things as technical camera settings for various effects, depth of field rules (and how to break them), posing and communication techniques, composition rules, detailed guide on how to enhance/fade various details of your model (ex too large chin, overweight body, etc).
It is a great guide to have around and the perfect first step towards portraits. What I love most about it, is that for every rules it gives an example on how/when to break it.
Don't expect very creative examples, this book isn't meant to put you on a pattern. The examples are average and to the point regarding the technique discussed, they are detailed and explain both the technical part and the concept behind it. Don't expect extreme creativity or breathtaking images inside, the images inside are meant to inspire, not to guide. After you learn the techniques inside, it's up to you to put them into practice according to your own style.