Customer Reviews

Wedding and Studio Portrait Photography: The Professional Way

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"Wedding and Studio Portrait Photography: The Professional Way" by Jonathan Hilton

Johathan Hilton has written a useful and informative book for the professional. The book is divided into two sections, one on wedding photography and the other on portrait photography. As a bonus, at the end are the portfolios of three wedding and two portrait photographers that are inspirational to view.

The wedding section follows a wedding in logical sequence, from wedding preparations to the reception. Each image here is diagramed to show the way it was taken, the lights used, and what the photographer was trying to accomplish. In short, a useful reference. The images shown here would be a good checklist for wedding photographers, to make sure nothing is missed. There are plenty of useful sidebars with Hints and Tips.

This book was written in the pre-digital age, yet surprisingly has aged very well, since it focuses on techniques that are universal to all photographers, film or digital. Modern photographers will smile at the quaint discussion of camera gear, yet another reminder to publishers not to include this information as it dates your book too quickly. Still, "Wedding and Studio Portrait Photography" should not be overlooked because of this, since outdated equipment discussions are left quickly by page 13.

The portrait section revolves around "The Four Ages" i.e., babies, youth, maturity, and old age. This section has stunning images and the same wonderful diagrams as the wedding section, to allow the reader to recreate the images.

This is a well written book that tackles well the specific concerns of wedding and portrait photographers.

Recommended.

I found this book helpful because most of the photos are accompanied by an illustration that explains how the lighting was achieved. However, the photos are very outdated (circa 1980) and a bit cheesy. They didn't inspire me to go out and replicate them. A better book is Bambi Cantrell's "The Art of Wedding Photography: Professional Techniques with Style". This one is much more modern and innovative.

I see that the book was released in 2003, but that must either be a re-release date or simply the book took several years to be published. The equipment used is old antiques compared to today's standards. I don't mean that its not the newest Canon Mk IV or anything, its simply old enough that it talks of power winders and other accessories for old manual focus 35mm. This seems to have been written before digital was even thought of!

Now, the saving grace in this book is the technique. It does have good technique which is relevant today, I simply can't get past the fact of the severely outdated equipment. Granted I have an old Canon A-1 that I play around with, but I would never use it today on a professional shoot...