Customer Reviews

Jeff Smith's Posing Techniques for Location Portrait Photography

5 star:		(8)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

While text in this book is useful at times, but you can get pretty much same stuff from most of "Posing techniques" (including brilliant books by Gomez on glamour photography) books out there (including few very good ones). There is VERY little specifics about on location posing, which book supposed to be about. Couple of chapters on how to sell your work - dont even understand why they were added, apart from making up for volume. Most of images in book are pretty mediocre, and like 70% of them reminds you of what person who just learned how to apply gaussian blur in Photoshop to smooth skin and make Orton's effect would be keep doing out of sheer excitement (and i kid you not. Image on the cover is one of very few good ones).

On the whole - very few good tips and loads of repetition of other books. And very few good shots , which actually looks professional (sorry for repeating this, but its kind of strikes me. I never saw such a horrible stuff before in a book that pretends to teach people)

Jeff Smith does a nice job of conveying the strategy behind photography outside of the studio. Not only informative but also teaches the reader to sharpen his/her skill. Posing techniques for both individuals and groups as well as maximizing environmental surroundings to work for your photographs are discussed in detail. An invaluable book for any photographer's library.

Jeff Smith is certainly one of my favorite authors in the field of photography. This book, like his many other texts, is well written and illustrated. Jeff breaks down posing into the simplest of terms so that anyone can follow his step by step instruction. His examples of group portraits are especially helpful and beautifully executed.

I received my order yesterday and started to read this book. I couldn't put it down. It had so many points I would have never considered, and wouldn't have guessed that would matter to a woman. For example, ankles are about the only thing I never notice on a woman, but they do. I would have thought leaning a person up against a rock for example would be a great shot, well, not exactly. Mr. Smith covers nearly everything from the tilt of the head to how the toes should be positioned. Also another thing is how to creatively hide areas of a person that are going to make an otherwise great shot into a reject. Great pictures of women, guys and families. He certainly brings out the beauty of the gals in his poses. (I must say though that with most of these gals, making them look good is not too hard.) Well worth the price. Amazon delivered in about 4 days. Ric.

Clearly the author has considerable knowledge in his domain. What the book is lacking though is high quality instructional text.

This book is probably most helpful for an experienced, but early career photographer who is looking how someone else is doing things just to mix things up, expand on breadth.

For someone who has not gotten any other instruction on posing, the descriptions will fall well short of anything that can be reproduced in a repeatable and predicable fashion. It doesn't have enough detail, doesn't explain enough of the why/how.

And for the seasoned pro, there is not enough new stuff in here to make it worth the read.

The style of writing is much more of a pro sitting down on the porch over a drink comparing notes with someone else, than someone trying to explain how something works from the ground up.

In terms of photo books, it's like showing a photo, the lighting diagram, but not explaining why those lights were placed there. Lots of those books around as well.

Would I have picked it up from a book store? Maybe. Would I buy it again? Probably not. Did I expect more than it delivered? Definitely.

This book is not only a location posing guide because most of its tips can be perfectly applied in a studio as well.The images are really amazing and up-to-date. There is no excess, every pose can be easily used with models or common people successfully. I do recommend it even if you are a pro. It is an essential and pleasant worthy reading book. You will read it over and over again. Certanly, it is one of the most helpful books in this category.There is another similar book : The Portrait Photographer's Guide do Posing by Bill Hurter.

Advanced amateur or professional photographers may get bored by this book, but newcomers to model photography, I do not know if I use the correct term, this book is excellent. Reading, understanding, and applying positively affect my photos right away.

I personally was having problem in getting the right pose for model, especially full body. I have never felt good with the composition. I guess it was because the shape of human body is different from normal photo frame.

The way Jeff describes things are is excellent. Not so much of hard chewed theory. Practical approach with a small but make sense backgrounds makes me focus into trying to apply his lessons right away.

This book is reasonably well written, but I found that the photos in the book didn't match what the words were saying. The author would tell you to do one thing and then the example photo would break the rule that was just given. Anyway, it did help me with posing a little better, but it could have been better.

This is a great book for the person who is looking for ideas to begin shooting portraits. I actually skim it a couple days b4 an impt photo shoot. Jeff does a great job writing as it is easy to read and understand with great examples. His reasoning makes sense and encourages the reader to want to read more. I highly recommend this book to all photographers especially those who are wanting to start their own studios or business.

Book tells you the why behind posing certain ways. I don't like that the author constantly wants to hide a persons stomach and butt/thigh areas though. I def feel there are better ways to pose rather than hiding them but it's a good book still.