Archive for the 'book' Category

The title of this post is a quote from Samuel Beckett that I found in Paul Arden’s It’s Not How Good You Are, It’s How Good You Want to Be (recommended by Chase Jarvis) and came into my mind when saw this video of Michael Jordan.

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I read a lot about photography. Books and blogs as well. I read to learn, to improve and to get inspired. Possibly I read more than I should. As a result sometimes I get pissed off because get less and less from what I read.

I know that many people start blogging just about anything like I did with photography almost two and a half year ago: without much of experience and knowledge. And when lack of knowledge goes hand-in-hand with rock solid confidence and, I wouldn’t question that part, really hard work and enthusiasm, that very rarely results lasting quality.

Learning about the business aspects of photography has never been as easy as it is today and, due to the just explained reasons, never has required as much cautious pre-selection as today.

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Do you know this company? I’m sure you do. Last time they estimated delivering my order by April the 22nd and it actually arrived on April the 1st.  I was pleased the least to say.

That’s a great example of under promising and over delivering. Might be applied to your business as well.

The books I ordered and received were:

• The Hot Shoe Diaries: Big Light from Small Flashes

and

• Monte Zucker’s Portrait Photography Handbook

More on them later.

No, I still don’t have the book in my hands. The reason for that is that Hungary is a bit too far for Amazon. I’ve already ordered the book and hopefully will receive it in a matter of few weeks.
By that time I can read only David Hobby’s writeup on the book (he had the privilege to read it in PDF format) and the surprisingly lenghty excerpt here from Peachpit.

Are you planning to buy it?

I would like to draw your attention to a book. It is the Portrait Photographer’s Handbook written by Bill Hurter.
This book about, you could have guessed, portrait photography was not designed for the absolute beginner photographer and I really doubt that it would be regularly flipped through by the experienced professionals. The target audience is somewhere in between:  it might be useful for those who have already made a few portraits, started doing the Photoshop magic and would want to develop their skills with the desire of being able to make powerful portraits.

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Even though Joe has just entered the photography books arena only a few months ago with “The Moment It Clicks” his new book is soon on the bookshelves.
The Hot Shoe Diaries – Creative applications of small flashes might not fill a niche market, since other authors have already published books about using remotely triggered speedlights in commercial or other photography, however I’m sure Joe McNally’s not yet released book is going to be an outstanding work with Joe’s unique voice, humor and not-that-technical terms (like adjusting flashes by WAG – Wild Ass Guess).

An other book that might be worth a look at is Minimalist Lighting: Professional Techniques for Location Photography by Kirk Tuck. Kirk discusses the topic from the history of lighting for photography through the right gear for location based shooting and closing with some real case studies.

One thing that Kirk has definitely overcome Joe is that Minimalist lighting has a beautiful woman on the cover while Joe’s book displays a half-naked man.