>>> Discussion: Books

ivar

Next topic: Books! What are your favorite people photography books?


What are the books that you keep going back to? the one that you learned the most from? The one that you feel everyone should read?




If you have any topics/questions that you would like discussed, please let me know :thumb

Hackbone

Anything by Dean Collins, Joe Zeltsman, Monte Zucker, Al Gilbert, Dennis Reggie, Brian DeMint, Eddie Tapp, Parket Pfister. Learn the classics then break out.

ivar

Skin
[IMGR]http://ivar.smugmug.com/photos/903425657_jeJk6-S.jpg[/IMGR]
I really like "Skin: The Complete Guide to Digitally Lighting, Photographing, and Retouching Faces and Bodies", by Lee Varis.

I know there are several people who like this book, so maybe all/most of you have heard about this book already.

Varis starts out with some general (non people specific) information about hardware/software/color management. After that small section, it is where it gets more interesting. Lighting techniques, ethnicity, and lots of post processing information & examples.

The book comes with a CD; It contains the images used in the book so you can follow along with his examples if you like.

D'Buggs

x2 on Skin. It's probably one of my 'better book buys'.

Michael Grecco's, Lighting and the Dramatic Portrait. Is another that keeps calling me back. I really like this guys work.

Tom Ang has a couple books out that I give the nod to.

An outfit called Photo Workshop has a series of books out. A couple of which I own but have loaned out and can't recall titles and authors of..... The one that covered exposure and composition, I thought it to be pretty darn good.


For the past year or two, I make it a habit of hitting up Chapters for a new one. This month I couldn't make up my mind and ended up walking out with, Playboy; The Celebrities. Except for Heffs foreword, it doesn't contain a lot of reading but does have some delicious imagery that dates back from the era of the mags conception, to recent works.... Nice stuff! And offers up ideas on pose, lighting, etc.

Hopefully someone will post a title that I *must* have for my next purchase.... IMO, there's a lot of crap out there.

divamum

Oooo... sounds like this is one I should have!!

I really like Scott Kelby's CS3 processing book - some good skin retouching tips.

Another book I love is

(click image for link to Amazon)


which reverse-engineers a slew of famous studio portraits from the likes of George Hurrell and others. Great fun.

jeffreaux2

500 Poses for Photographing Women (by Michelle Perkins)





While I have only used a handful of the poses in the book, I usually give it to the senior girls to flip through and mark poses they like on the way to a shoot and to and from locations. Usually trying to do a pictured pose leads to something entirely different that we go with. It helps me to also understand how they picture themselves...somewhat.

There's no text. Just 500 great looking portraits from head and shoulders to full length......seated to standing. Lots of variety.


Heres a client pointing one out to me on location...

D'Buggs

^^^^ - Now there's something benificial too me! Thanks Jeff.

Village Idiot

Light Science & Magic. It has a good section on doing portrait photography. It's a great book for helping to learn more of the why about lighting rather than. "put this light here, and shoot like this".

I'm going to look into Skin right now.

kris10jo

I recently picked up a few photography books from Costco. They had a random selection of a few copies of a few books, but I ended up buying Visual Poetry: A Creative Guide for Making Engaging Digital Photographs by Chris Orwig. It's a great read with some great reminders and suggestions from an artistic point of view. There's probably many points that we all know, but it's great to have reminders and beautiful photographs for inspiration. He also includes interviews with other professional photographers and some great assignments to try out.

divamum

Here's a bit of serendipity: I was digging around my basement, and stumbled across a long-forgotten volume (apparently I bought it in 1988, since I had the sense to date it!). Mine is the soft-cover catalog from the exhibit at the LA Museum of Art, which it appears was subsequently turned into a published book and is apparently still available for purchase

Masters of Starlight

It's glorious. Not only page after page of wonderful photos and fascinating biographical/historical info, but they also compiled many quotes from the photographers, including some rather helpful technical comments! If it's in your library or you have a chance to look at it/get hold of it, it's a wonderful read for any portrait photographer. Great stuff.

jziegler

Resurrecting an old thread, I'd like to ask a question about books. My first baby will be arriving this summer, and I haven't done many kid shots, and have never shot a baby at all. So, being a bookish type, I'm wondering what books anyone might suggest to get me started on ideas for how to shoots babies and kids. Probably not the single most important thing for me to learn to become a father, but something that I'd like to do (and my wife approves). Any thoughts? Good web sources instead of books?

Thanks,
Jim

adbsgicom

Lee Varis has updated the original Skin book with "Skin 2". Highly recommend it (not so much if you have already digested the first one).
I also have liked reading Joe McNally's books. They include some nice commentary as well as setup information to help visualize how the lighting is created.

+1 on the posing book Jeff mentioned, and the Light: Science & Magic book.

Also useful for setup is Kevin Kubota's "Lighting Notebook"

Color Space questions? "Color Management for Photographers" by Andrew Rodney.
Questions about Data Management and Backup Strategies? "The DAM Book" by Peter Krough

Dreadnote

Hackbone wrote: »

Anything by Dean Collins, Joe Zeltsman, Monte Zucker, Al Gilbert, Dennis Reggie, Brian DeMint, Eddie Tapp, Parket Pfister. Learn the classics then break out.

Any chance you can elaborate on specific volumes by these authors? I'm always in the market for a good book.

Hackbone

Dreadnote wrote: »

Any chance you can elaborate on specific volumes by these authors? I'm always in the market for a good book.

Half of these gentlemen have passed but some of their works can still be found on youtube of by doing a google on the name. Sorry I can't point to any one volume as they cover the spectrum. Especially on light and posing.

Collins was really into the technical aspet of light and really new his stuff. Too bad he passed at an early age. Monte was the old master of posing and traditional lighting. Reggis is still current and down in Atlanta at last I heard. Does alot of the Kennedy weddings and such.