Portraits Books

Master Lighting Guide for Portrait Photographers

Christopher Grey

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 66 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Visual learner 5 out of 5 stars.
0 of 0 people found this review helpful.

To those with learning disabilities as myself, having suffered a stroke, that use visuals for their input, this book was excellent in all it's methodologies of teaching lighting techniques!

First were the photos themselves, each was shown along with the lighting ratios, and the effect of the various lighting implements used for that particular mood or style of photo being expressed.

Next was a series of photos taken with the same lighting ratio, but with different equipment, showing just how illuminating light can be, and how a Softbox, Umbrella, and what have you can change and influence just how mood and intensity are controlled.

I highly recommend this book for it's excellence in handling the subject at hand...namely Portrait Lighting!

Editorial Review:

Time-tested lighting strategies that will improve the quality of a portrait are detailed in this book for beginning photographers. Terminology used by industry pros is explained, the equipment needed to create professional results is outlined, and the unique role that each element of the lighting setup plays in the studio is explored. Photographers learn how color, direction, form, and contrast affect the final portrait. The concise text, photo examples, and lighting diagrams enable photographers to easily achieve traditional lighting styles that have been the basis of good portraiture since the advent of the art.

Material World: A Global Family Portrait

Peter Menzel, Charles C. Mann

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 54 Average rating: 5.0 of 5

Editorial Review:

In honor of the United Nations-sponsored International Year of the Family in 1994, award-winning photojournalist Peter Menzel brought together 16 of the world's leading photographers to create a visual portrait of life in 30 nations. Material World tackles its wide subject by zooming in, allowing one household to represent an entire nation. Photographers spent one week living with a "statistically average" family in each country, learning about their work, their attitudes toward their possessions, and their hopes for the future. Then a "big picture" shot of the family was taken outside the dwelling, surrounded by all their (many or few) material goods.

The book provides sidebars offering statistics and a brief history for each country, as well as personal notes from the photographers about their experiences. But it is the "big pictures" that tell most of the story. In one, a British family pauses before a meal of tea and crumpets under a cloudy sky. In another, wary Bosnians sit beside mattresses used as sniper barricades. A Malian family composed of a husband, his two wives, and their children rests before a few cooking and washing implements in golden afternoon light. Material World is a lesson in economics and geography, reminding us of the world's inequities, but also of humanity's common threads. An engrossing, enlightening book. --Maria Dolan

Posing Techniques for Photographing Model Portfolios

Billy Pegram

Amazon Price: $23.07 List Price: $34.95 Usually ships in 24 hours By: Amherst Media, Inc. Amazon Marketplace: 27 new & used starting at $21.82

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 14 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

very good start for creative portfolio model posing 4 out of 5 stars.
0 of 0 people found this review helpful.

it goes much better into details and techniques for good start of creative model posing than any other book I had on this subject. It's really NOT about wedding poses against an old fashion backdrop or group family portrait posing in the garden.

Editorial Review:

With detailed discussions and eye-catching, dynamic images, this guidebook shows professional photographers how to masterfully create beautiful images of a model to achieve any creative objective. Instructions illustrate basic poses as well as a host of subtle variations to provide photographers with an endless array of looks for editorial fashion shots, athletics, glamour or nude photography, and shots designed to show curves, reveal personality, or showcase the hands, hair, or legs. This comprehensive resource also provides expert advice on conducting a successful session, how to work with the model, how to work with a support staff of image stylists, and tips for designing a high-quality portfolio. Additional lessons provide a start-to-finish analysis of four different shooting sessions, each with a different model and a different objective.

Facial Expressions: A Visual Reference for Artists

Mark Simon

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 44 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

Editorial Review:

All artists are tired of persuading their nearest and dearest to look sad…look glad…look mad…madder…no, even madder…okay, hold it. For those artists (and their long-suffering friends), here is the best book ever. Facial Expressions includes more than 2,500 photographs of 50 faces—men and women of a variety of ages, shapes, sizes, and ethnicities—each demonstrating a wide range of emotions and shown from multiple angles. Who can use this book? Oh, only every artist on the planet, including art students, illustrators, fine artists, animators, storyboarders, and comic book artists. But wait, there's more! Additional photos focus on people wearing hats and couples kissing, while illustrations show skull anatomy and facial musculature. Still not enough? How about a one-of-a-kind series of photos of lips pronouncing the phonemes used in human speech? Animators will swoon—and artists will show a range of facial expressions from happy to happiest to ecstatic.

Madonna Confessions

Guy Oseary

Amazon Price: $26.37 List Price: $39.95 Not yet published By: powerHouse Books

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Lighting and the Dramatic Portrait: The Art of Celebrity and Editorial Photography

Michael Grecco

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 25 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

Editorial Review:

Priceless--yet practical--ideas and insights from the master of portrait photography
* Ready-to-use insider tips for photographers at every level
* Author teaches across the country and is renowned for sharing his secrets

Michael Grecco is one of the best-known celebrity photographers in the world. His beautiful, insightful work is all around us--on movie posters, in advertising, on magazine covers, everywhere. "I delight in inspiring people," he writes. "I want them to stop, think, and feel." Now Grecco shares the secrets of great portraits with photographers at every level, in Lighting and the Dramatic Portrait. Sections on cameras, illumination, film and digital, creativity and conceptualization, connecting with the subject, and having a point of view, plus intriguing case studies that show "how I got that picture," make this book a resource photographers will use again and again through the years. Whether the subject is a star or a soccer mom, Grecco shows how to add artistry, drama, wit, humor, and personality to their portrait.

A Photographer's Life: 1990-2005

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 103 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

Editorial Review:

“I don’t have two lives,” Annie Leibovitz writes in the Introduction to this collection of her work from 1990—2005. “This is one life, and the personal pictures and the assignment work are all part of it.” Portraits of well-known figures–Johnny Cash, Nicole Kidman, Mikhail Baryshnikov, Keith Richards, Michael Jordan, Joan Didion, R2-D2, Patti Smith, Nelson Mandela, Jack Nicholson, William Burroughs, George W. Bush with members of his Cabinet–appear alongside pictures of Leibovitz’s family and friends, reportage from the siege of Sarajevo in the early Nineties, and landscapes made even more indelible through Leibovitz’s discerning eye. The images form a narrative rich in contrasts and continuities: The photographer has a long relationship that ends with illness and death. She chronicles the celebrations and heartbreaks of her large and robust family. She has children of her own. All the while she is working, and the public work resonates with the themes of her life.

Looker

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 3 Average rating: 2.5 of 5

random photography 3 out of 5 stars.
5 of 11 people found this review helpful.

The book itself is excellent quality and very nice to look at, with large full-page or even two page spreads. But the what the author is actually going for is a bit more confusing. Looking at the cover of the book, you're expecting a voyeuristic look into the lives of these beautiful women, but the pics seem to be more random than that. The pics go from very normal and boring, to expected voyeur, to highly unrealistic or voyeuristic pics that seem more like softcore pics for a much more adult type of publication. In conclusion, the book is a beautiful hardback with lots of content, I just wish there was more of the voyeur and less of the boring or the over the top, unrealistic content. Sticking to the central theme would have benefitted the book more.

Editorial Review:

If the model is the exhibitionist, then I am the voyeur.—Richard Kern

Richard Kern is a post-modernist punk photographer who has worked in New York city rock music and “No Wave” art circles since the 1970s. In Looker, through a series of carefully constructed vignettes, Kern’s models proceed through their daily private lives, seemingly unaware of the camera. Or are they wittingly playing into the obvious cinematic intrigue? The balance of control present in each frame is a powerful and sensual statement.

Looker is thought-provoking in its gentle nature, pastoral tones, and caring reflection of private innocence—but it is also freshly and stunningly erotic, silently exuberant in its portrayal of intimacy and abandon. Richard Kern’s photographs are a peek into a world of mystery and eroticism.

Beyond Portraiture: Creative People Photography

Bryan Peterson

Amazon Price: $16.47 List Price: $24.95 Usually ships in 24 hours By: Bryan Peterson - Model: 0817453911 Amazon Marketplace: 32 new & used starting at $10.98

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 22 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Editorial Review:

Great portraits go beyond a mere record of a face. They reveal one of the millions of intimate human moments that make up a life. In Beyond Portraiture, renowned photographer Bryan Peterson shows how to spot those "ah-ha!" moments and capture them forever. A teary child...old people laughing together...a smiling girl with big, big hair. Everyone remember pictures like these, usually taken by a mother, a father, a friend holding a camera, forever preserving small yet revealing vignettes of our personal histories. But we always relied on pure luck and chance to catch those moments. Peterson's approach explains what makes a photo memorable, how to spot the universal themes that everyone can identify with, and how to use lighting, setting, and exposure to reveal the wonder and the joy of everyday moments. Beyond Portraiture makes it easy to create indelible memories with light and shadow. Bryan Peterson's books have sold more than 200,000 copies Specific enough for beginners, insightful enough for professionals Bryan Peterson is a well-known photographer, writer, and teacher. In addition to his many books for Amphoto, he writes a column thatappears in Popular Photography and contributes to prominent magazines. His workshops and online photo course at PPSOP.com are invariably sold out. He divides his time between Seattle, WA and Lyon, France, and New York City. 8-1/4 x 11 160 pages 200 color illustr

Creative Nature and Outdoor Photography

Brenda Tharp

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 37 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

one of three to own 5 out of 5 stars.
0 of 0 people found this review helpful.

I own a few Shaw, ( Nature Photography field guide) Mammoser,(The Photographer's guide to the Colorado Rockies)and (Digital Photography for Dummies) by David Busch who also has written specific guides for cameras. The three make up a complete library . Tharps book is like attending an advanced photo workshop, Concepts rather then specifics are taught . She really explains for example Light, how to use it .Chapter 10 on self evaluation is worth the price of the read. My only regret is not having a digital specific section.,

Nature Photography Tips 5 out of 5 stars.
0 of 1 people found this review helpful.

The best, quick study, complete book on taking pictures in the outdoors, that I have seen to date.

This is the most AMAZING book! 5 out of 5 stars.
0 of 3 people found this review helpful.

This is the most AMAZING book you can ever get about photography.

After I started reading this book, my mind changed about photography.

I can surely say that this is the best book I have read about photography.

You NEED this book if you are really into photography.

[...]

Creative Nature and Outdoor Photography 5 out of 5 stars.
0 of 0 people found this review helpful.

Packed full of easy-to-understand, useful information. Certainly a help to anyone in taking better pictures. Bonus - the excellent pictures make it a great coffee-table book.