Studio Portrait Photography: A Guide to Classic Portrait Photography

Rating:
Summary: A decent intermediate portraiture book
Review: I just finished reading this book and anyone without a general understanding of how the basic photographic process works would be a little stumped, because this book does get pretty technical.

On the plus side, it is extremely easy to read and browse thru esp coz some of the work is really very good. My one little qualm with the book was there are a couple of pictures that i wudve lovd to kno the lighting setup for, but tht wasnt demonstrated.. for most of the shots tho, a small briefing abt camera, esposure settings, lighting setup, special techniques and little hints and tips are provided which are very helpful to get to know the essence of shooting the frame. Sum of the work is truly outstanding, tho sumtimes i get the feeling that the lighting setups werent explained very accurately which led me to believe that mebbe the author conjured up the setups on his own without inputs from the original photographers.

overall there are good tips and techniques most of which ud probably know already if u've bin shooting on your own.. and it does tend to get a little repetitive abt certain ideas.. overall tho it is a book i'd recommned anyone interested in portaiture ought to have for the sheer simplicity of presentation and useful ideas you'd glean as you read the book. Since this is a classic portraiture book, dont expect to find radical new age images in it.. a lot of the shots are tastefully done B&W's.. with a good sprinkling of those cross processed fashion ed shots...classic stuff that you'd always use throughout your life shooting people.. this book addresses shooting people from all walks of life of all ages of both sexes for commercial and personal use. Most of the work is studio work with a few daylight and strobes + daylight pics for variety.. so u'd have to have atleast one studio strobe with reflectors to b able to try atleast sum of the shots..

Sum shots have complex light setups.. the lighting diagrams are not as good as the PRO LIGHTING series diagrams from ROTOVISION also.. but then thats a specilised book.. this book offers useful technique that isnt offered in the PRO LIGHTING series.

To conclude i'd just say this is a book that shud be on ur shelf just coz u'll always find sumthing useful from this book for a long time if u shoot people :)