I wouldn’t dare to say I know Joe McNally or even his photographic works. Surely, after reading about his new book on several sites and watching the video introduction to his book (shown also at the end of this article) I started noticing his name at various places like in Nikon brochures.
It happened when he started writing his blog in a tone that just captured me and doesn’t let me go since then. I decided to buy his book: The Moment It Clicks. I was checking my inbox regularly with anticipation and finally it arrived a few days ago. Yes, delivery to Hungary takes a couple of days.

And the book just sucked me in like a whirlpool. It started with Scott Kelby’s foreword and continued with Joe’s astonishing pictures and conversational writing. Reading the book and seeing those photographs just close out all the noises of the commuting train and I’m lucky that I have to get off the train only at the terminal, otherwise I would definitely miss my stop.
He is writing as if he is talking to a friend – in a colorful, sometimes funny, another times touching way with lot of humor and emotions.
When you are reading his stories on making the pictures you feel just like being there, seeing what he sees, worrying about what he is concerned about. Then he comes up with an new idea or some trade secret that he’s been practicing for ages and you reach for your dropped jaws and by the time you look back the situation has been resolved and the hero frame is already on the film or the memory card and will be published as a double truck or even double gratefold in National Geographic or as a frontpage of Life.

His photos are telling, powerful and beautiful. Cannot say more, I’m not the one who you should expect to judge Joe McNally’s photography.
Looking at the technical side, Joe has fallen in love with light many years ago and now he knows more about it than most us will ever know. The light of his strobes when he is using some look so natural, soft and subtle on his photos, that you hardly notice that there was a flash light when making that picture.

There was one thing that raised my eyebrow when reading – guess what – the acknowledgement at the beginning of the book. Apart from mentioning his family, professors, fellow photographers and other influencers of his photography, Joe says big thanks to his editors. He writes ‘Without good editors, as photographers we are lost.‘ Something that I’ve never thought of about photography. I suppose good editors must be like coaches. The golf club is in Tiger Woods’ hands, but even he has a coach.

For me The Moment It Clicks was and is worth every Hungarian forints deducted from my bank account by Amazon. It’s an amazing book. Joe’s passion for photography radiates from every page. If I hadn’t been earlier, now I definitely got infected by it.
If you buy the book, which I – needless to say – recommend, don’t forget to register it at Peachpit for an extra chapter.

And finally the intro video to the book: