This book is meant to be an instructional guide in the art of macro photography. Various subjects are covered including equipment, lighting, and specific targets including flowers and insects. Coverage is not particularly exhaustive on any category, this is much more of a basic primer than a master class. Finally, the author recommends resources to continue exploring macro photography such as various web sites.
The first thing I noticed when I started reading is that the photos are well below average for a book of this type. You can see images on the web every day that make even the best shots in here look weak. The insect shots are the best of the lot, but most of the rest are mediocre to just plain awful. These include most of the shots that the author holds up as examples that we should aspire to. The flaws vary but usually involve some combination of lighting, contrast, and composition.
The next issue is that the author is apparently blind to what makes a close-up photo work. For example, he cites a photo of a lizard as being a failure due to lighting but the real problem is that the composition is that of a poor snapshot and no lighting would ever make it compelling. After seeing variations of this same thing occur over and over throughout the book, I realized that he literally has no clue what makes a successful photo. Given that we're supposed to take his advice on how to create great photos, this is obviously a problem.
This book also suffers from sloppy editing. Consider these two direct quotes.
Page 101: The word photography means writing with light.
Page 115" The word photography literally means "writing with light"
If something like this is going to be repeated within 14 pages of the last citation, wouldn't you want to acknowledge in some way that you're repeating it? Something like "As I mentioned, the word photography means..." so that it doesn't look like you just forgot that this is something you've already said? Sadly, a lot of the material in the book seemed repeated from prior pages and chapters. Lighting, for example, gets rehashed ad nauseum.
I kept pushing through this book hoping to gain some insights but it is filled with little beyond generalities. I have read quite a few photography books and this one is about as bad as I've ever seen. The photos are not even up to the level I would expect from talented amateurs and the text reflects such ignorance that it's painful to read. I would not recommend this book to anyone.
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