book review: Picture Perfect Lighting, by Roberto Valenzuela
I strongly believe that there's a pivotal moment that happens (or will happen) for most photographers as they progress and become better at this thing we do with a camera - a moment of clarity when we realize that much of photography really hinges on the understanding of light and how it behaves. This was the theme of my one book, Direction & Quality of Light where I explained in the introduction that once we understand those principles, then we can pretty much use any light source, whether on-camera flash or off-camera Read more inside...
Humans of New York (HONY), is inarguably *the* best thing on Facebook. A bold statement, but the millions of fans of Brandon Stanton's labor of love, will agree. Brandon roams countless miles, photographing people on the streets of New York, and recording their stories. In the past two years, he has also visited various countries in the Middle East and in Central Africa.
Photos and personal stories that connect us all. Photos and stories and anecdotes that are engrossing and moving and endearing. These touch us all. For example - no Read more inside...
The extensively revised and updated book, On-Camera Flash (Amazon), is now available on Amazon. Based on the best-selling 1st edition, this is more than just a cosmetic overhaul. Combining older material which have been polished and streamlined, with lots of new material and trawling the Tangents blog for the best material on how to use your on-camera flash to best advantage.
Details about the book: On-Camera Flash (2nd edition)
You can either purchase a copy via Amazon USA or Amazon UK.
The book will also available as Read more inside...
When Direction and Quality of Light was released in March 2013, it felt like an even bigger achievement than my previous two books. Here I share many of the "aha!" moments which took me years to completely grasp - that at the heart of it, every aspect of photographic lighting is dependent on understanding the direction and quality of light.
I do believe this book can make a difference to your photography. I'm that confident about it.
All the more amazing to see that 2 years later, this book is still bouncing up and Read more inside...
book review: Roberto Valenzuela - Picture Perfect Posing
I've noticed that articles on Tangents which deal with the topic of how to pose people, gets a lot of attention. Posing is a challenging topic for most photographers except the very best who seem to have an innate gift for it.
Books on posing tend to approach the topic as a list of suggestions - the kind of "1,000 poses" type books. Another alternative offered is flow posing where you maneuver a couple through a number of poses mechanically. Both of these approaches means you have to memorize poses by rote, instead of Read more inside...
Gregory Heisler is an undisputed genius when it comes to photographic lighting. If ever you get the opportunity to attend a seminar by him, do yourself a favor. The story behind each portrait, and the motivation and the struggles to create those images, don't just make for entertaining anecdotes - and Gregory Heisler is an entertaining speaker - but the stories are insightful. Educational. But not just educational in a do-this-do-that explanation of technique. It's much more than that.
In this book he has collected 50 of his his best Read more inside...