» Professional Secrets of Natural Light Portrait Photography

Professional Secrets of Natural Light Portrait Photography Reviews

Customer Rating:
Summary: Useful book
Comment: If you're new to photography, this book can be a great help in understanding how to manage natural light and make good photos. The example photographs are beautiful. The book does not really explain how to soften your photos to look like those in the book. The photos and related diagrams showing the placement of the subject, camera and reflectors is very helpful. However, not all photos have diagrams and, as you might suspect, the photos without diagrams are the most meaningful. The section discussing how to make a Light Finder doesn't provide enough information to make it easy to understand and use; the example showing the final item is really confusing - clearly written by someone who isn't a teacher. I would recomend this book to beginning photographers who are serious about becoming professionals.

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Customer Rating:
Summary: Keep looking...
Comment: Maybe it's just me, but the photographer/author of this book has a very short playbook for his shots. They are all incredibly over-posed, even down to the same blue/white clothes that nearly all his models wear. I felt like every page had the same information as the last. Most of the example shots were the kind grandma would like - nothing young couples and families would be asking for. All too dated for the modern photographer.

Some of the lighting techniques are useful and interesting, but when you are shooting outdoors, God-given light is pretty easy and straight-forward to work with. With a little practice, anyone with a good eye can master outdoor lighting for portraits.

Skip this book and save your $$ for a better lens. You'll be happier with better glass than having this book gathering dust on the shelf.

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Customer Rating:
Summary: very nice information
Comment: This is also a great photography book! I love the usage of natural light in photography, and Douglas Box gives simple but precise directions on how to achieve the look you are aiming for. It, as well as all aspects of learning, is going to take time, but the manner in which he explains is very easy to understand. His explanation of terms such as "raccoon eyes" is also nice as well. It is a very nice photography book!

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Customer Rating:
Summary: Not very useful. Portrait style is dated. Digital is not mentioned.
Comment: Time goes fast and before you even realize information, tips, secrets regarding graphic arts -including photography- can be obsolete. This book is good if read back in the '80s. The style for protraits is out of current trends (meaning what comsumers would buy). If you plan to do business in photography, this is NOT a book for you.

Aperture priority in some photos are wrongly used. Example: the girls at the gate with a cute basket of flowers. That is probably a 5.6 aperture. The point of focus (sharpness) fell on the fence! instead of girls faces or flowers. If soft focused is the point, you still want the sharpest area on the subject and not on the surroundings.

Composition in photos: too busy and dsitracting from subjetc in my opinion.
Secrets? There are no secrets revealed in this book unless it is the very first photography book that gets to your hands for the very first time.

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Customer Rating:
Summary: Ok, Was Hoping for More
Comment: This book is OK. I was really hoping for a book that focused more on utilization of sun/natural light without the use of reflectors and/or inclusion of flash.

I feel that the photos are a bit dated, as is the layout of the book. It's just not as fresh and current as I'd have liked.

For basic information it's fine, but truly it is just sitting on a shelf taking up space - I'd contemplated returning it, to be honest.

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