Most Helpful Customer Reviews
9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Great overview for amateurs trying to move up..., July 12, 2007
This review is from: Professional Children's Portrait Photography: Techniques and Images from Master Photographers (Pro Photo Workshop) (Paperback)
I bought this book because one of the photographers is a favorite of mine, and I quickly found a couple others that I love. The book brings together different styles of photography, so there is something for most of us who work with infants/kids. Each chapter highlights a different photographer, so if you find you don't care for someones images, you can easily find someone you do like. They are all asked a series of the questions, but the answers vary. Some are pretty detailed where others are vague.
The images on the cover do not represent the photographers well enough. There are some AMAZING images in this book.
I gave this four stars because it's not at all technical. It does address what equipment everyone uses, with a brief discussion on lighting (some were more detailed in their answers than others,) but since the author is covering such a wide area, "Children's Portraiture", you find out a little about a lot of things. Some ideas on marketing, studio set up, working with infants/kids, etc...
Again, great overall book. Pointed me in the right direction and now I feel like I can push forward and learn more about what I found interesting and further my professional career. For that reason alone it deserves 5 stars, but since "techniques" is in the title, I think it fell a bit short. I really did love this book and would buy it again.
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8 of 9 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars
Mostly fluff, no techniques, decent images, probably not what you are looking for..., January 9, 2008
This review is from: Professional Children's Portrait Photography: Techniques and Images from Master Photographers (Pro Photo Workshop) (Paperback)
The subtitle of this book is a bit misleading: Techniques and Images from Master Protographers. There are a lot of interesting images in the book, but no discussion of how to achieve the look and feel of those images in your own studio. The book reads like a scripted interview of 15 different working pros on various topics: Their background, their studio, their equipment, whether they shoot digital or film, some useless naritive on lighting, how they book sessions, etc. It makes the text read like an interview of Scott Baio in Teen Beat magazine. (I feel like the interviewer is next going to ask the photographer what their favorite color is). All of the responses are too broad, vague, and undeveloped to be of much value.
There also doesn't seem to be a lot of variety in the type of work the photographers that were selected do. They all see themselves as 'mid to high end' and seem to see themselves as 'fine art' or 'photojournalistic'.
When you get down to it, this book is mostly fluff. If you are looking for posing ideas, lighting ideas, concrete ideas on running or promoting your studio, you won't find them in this book. If you are looking for a general narrative on how children's photographers feel about being a photographer, I guess you might get something out of this book.
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3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars
What a disappointment!, June 20, 2008
This review is from: Professional Children's Portrait Photography: Techniques and Images from Master Photographers (Pro Photo Workshop) (Paperback)
I was really looking forward to this book and bought it without reading the reviews first. I wish I had read all of them before making this purchase.
Well, another reviewer had it right: mostly fluff, little substance. I have to second that opinion of this book. The images are fantastic and there is some decent advice to photographers but the book doesn't promise what it implies in the title: Techniques. You get a few tiny tidbits here and there but nowhere near what I would have liked or would have expected considering the full title.
You can think of this book as basically a 14 chapter interview of 14 different photographers. That's all it is. A question is asked and answered in much the same fashion as a magazine article of a celebrity. The question is written out, which is then followed by the answer and not all the answers are as in depth as you might like.
It didn't meet my expectations to the point that I'm going to return the book and I got it only an hour ago!
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