Portraits Books - Page 6

Looker

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 4 Average rating: 3.0 of 5

Artsy, maybe, but it's NOT particularly erotic! 2 out of 5 stars.
7 of 12 people found this review helpful.

Richard Kern is obviously a talented photographer, but I came away somewhat disappointed with this book. It purports to show young women in candid moments in various stages of undress. But one thing it WASN'T was noticeably erotic.

There's an oriental girl shown eating corn-on-the-cob topless. And later she's shown spitting out toothpaste into the sink, also topless. There's a very porno-oriented image of a panty-less girl bending over in a van, exposing her vagina. And another highly un-erotic shot of a girl apparently squatting down in the wilderness to do her business. Also, why the photos of guys in a book supposedly dedicated to showing us beautiful nude women?

On the positive side, there are a couple of photos of girls with other girls that I thought promising. And there's another girl shown in an office setting with a hand on her shapely rear end. It would have been a whole lot hotter had it only been a female hand!

But overall, I would not have purchased this book had I known how weak the overall content inside actually was. It's needlessly crude, and too many of the models are unattractive or in poses that make them appear so.

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.

Posing for Portrait Photography: A Head-to-Toe Guide

Jeff Smith

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 33 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

Save your money .. 1 out of 5 stars.
1 of 1 people found this review helpful.

Ugh. Where to begin.

Well, for starters, I actually made it through this nearly worthless "guide". If this is your very first posing book then it has "some" usable information, stress "some". Otherwise, or if it is your first, do a yourself a favor and skip it and pickup the far superior "Portrait Photographers Handbook"-Hurter which covers posing (and more) as or more usably in a couple chapters than this whole guide. Or get "The portrait photographers guide to posing"-Hurter also (all are Amherst media so I'm not shilling here)which is an expansion of Hurter's chapters in the first book listed above on posing. They are far far better written, without ? I dunno what it is? ego? perhaps? or just a clunky writing style in this book. For example, if I read one more time how the author is so awesome and his new photographers are so unworthy and relegated to backroom or "senior" duties for 2 years doing headshots before they're worthy to move to 3/4 or full portraits, my eyes will probably get stuck in the rolling position. I got a sense the author is arrogant...and for NO REASON if his photos are any indication.

Whatever it was this book is nearly useless irrespective of that issue anyway. Even the photos, something I don't normally gripe about, are very average, far from inspiring. The above listed books are so far superior in this regard it's laughable. They contain photos from the top photogs in the country and are very inspiring.

I would actually rate this book 2 stars but seeing as how far the amazon 4.5* ratings are out of whack, if I could do zero I would. Highly overrated. 2 Stars

Editorial Review:

Photographers learn how to gauge the needs of their clients before placing them into a stale, preconceived “women’s,” “men’s,” or “children’s” pose that hardly fits the client’s personality or preferences. Provided with a two-pronged approach to fail-safe posing, photographers learn first to determine what the mood of the portrait should be and how to use an appropriate posing genre—traditional, casual, glamour, or journalistic. Photographers are then shown how that genre can be used as a basis to produce a pose that best suits the client, allowing them to create dynamic yet natural-looking pose that the subject—and the intended recipient—will love.

Existing Light Techniques for Wedding and Portrait Photography

Bill Hurter

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 6 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Excellent book. Great content. 5 out of 5 stars.
5 of 5 people found this review helpful.

Another easy reading book by Bill Hurter delves into the anatomy of light and the factors that affect it. Tools such as reflectors, flashes and strobes and their part in controlling light are discussed. Along with various lighting environments, techniques for using equipment and existing light to obtain images that are natural in appearance are also covered in detail. This book arms the reader with the knowledge to make the most out of every scene.

Editorial Review:

Packed with stunning images from more than 40 of the world’s most acclaimed wedding and portrait photographers, this book shows how to put together a lightweight, low-cost, and highly portable lighting kit that allows photographers to make quick work of creating perfect lighting in any location. Responding to a preference in the market for more natural, spontaneous-looking images, the guide explains how to achieve professional-quality lighting in parks, churches, schools, and other locations—all with lightweight, highly portable strobes, reflectors, scrims, and more.

PhoDOGraphy: How to Get Great Pictures of Your Dog

Kim Levin

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 1 Average rating: 5.0 of 5

Two thumbs way up!!! 5 out of 5 stars.
1 of 1 people found this review helpful.

Never ever have I gotten a new photography book and had every person in my family pick it up and thumb through it from cover to cover, but the new book "PhoDOGraphy - how to get great pictures of your dog" by Kim Levin changed that.

Why?

Every other page has a full size dog portrait on it while the opposing page not only has the chapter content, but often has 1-3 more thumbnail images. And these images aren't there as "window dressing", every single image is an example of what that chapter is covering with a full explanation of the "how's & why's" behind each of the sample images.

The first thing that came through was that Kim is a real dog lover, and of course this hit home with me as I am the proud dad of two miniature schnauzers, one of the ways this was apparent is Kim's emphasis on the safety of the dog when shooting outside of the confines of the dogs home.

While the book covers every topic you can imagine regarding photographing dogs, it's a quick read, I read it from cover to cover (each time) in just a couple hours (which means normal people could read it even faster).

Kim covers it all, from photographing dogs indoors, outdoors, dogs in motion, how to make use of different weather and seasons, photographing single dogs, multiple dogs, puppies... and more.

Ever see a picture of a dog and they're looking into the camera with its head cocked to one side? Kim walks you through how to capture that exact image.

One of my dogs is black and I can never seem to get a good picture of her, well Kim devotes and entire chapter, "The Black Dog", to this problem.

If you haven't picked up on it yet, I loved this book. It is well written, extremely informative and stuffed with outstanding images from cover to cover.

If you put a copy on your coffee table I guarantee that not only will every person who walks in your house pick it up, you will here things like "oooooh" and "aaaaah".

And you'll learn a heck of a lot about photographing dogs too.

Scott
www.WeeklyPhotoTips.com

Editorial Review:

At last! Here’s the book that combines heartwarming behind-the-scenes anecdotes with practical ideas for taking good—better—best photographs of our four-legged friends. With full discussions of black-and-white versus color portraits, indoors versus outdoors, composition, and capturing movement, PhoDOGraphy offers techniques that amateurs can use starting here and now. Great examples of dog portraiture, plus tons of ideas for fun new places to pose your furry friend (at the beach! in the park! in the car! in the snow!) make this a great gift for anyone who loves dogs.
It’s doggone useful, and doggone adorable, too!

Catherine Opie: American Photographer

Dorothy Allison, Jennifer Blessing, Nat Trotman, Russell Ferguson

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Editorial Review:

This comprehensive new exhibition catalogue, published to accompany the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum's major mid-career survey of Catherine Opie's work, is the first to gather all of the artist's key projects to date in a single volume. Opie is best known for her subtle but potent portraits of people from the queer communities of Los Angeles and San Francisco. In this definitive volume, each of Opie's series--among them Portraits, Freeways, Domestic, Icehouses and In and Around Home--is reproduced in full color plates alongside works that were not displayed in the exhibition, allowing for the most complete overview of this important Los Angeles artist's work to date. In addition, this volume features a lead essay by exhibition curator Jennifer Blessing, which surveys Opie's artistic career and its historical contexts; a series of interviews with the artist by Russell Ferguson, Chair of the Department of Art at UCLA; and a brief personal reflection by internationally renowned novelist Dorothy Allison, whose work explores many concerns similar to Opie's. It also includes introductory essays on each of the artist's series by Nat Trotman, Assistant Curator at the Guggenheim, as well as a newly researched, exhaustive exhibition history and bibliography, making it the primary source for future research on Opie's work.
Catherine Opie was born in Ohio in 1961 and is currently Professor of Photography at UCLA. Opie's work has been exhibited extensively throughout the United States, Europe and Japan. She has had solo exhibitions of her work at the Walker Art Center, Minneapolis; St. Louis Art Museum; Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago; and the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, among many others.