Studio and Location Lighting Secrets... by Rick Sammon and Vered Koshlano

Like mostly everything in life, photography is a never-ending learning process. Just when you thought you have mastered something, then there comes along something new that you have to learn (though I am the last to say that I already have mastered anything...).

So, wanting to learn about portrait photography some more, I got this wonderful book by Rick Sammon and Vered Koshlano. The title of the book is actually longer than the title of this blogpost - Studio and Location Lighting Secrets for Digital Photographers. The book includes a DVD.



I like the way the book started. It says, "You don't have to use thousands of dollars of studio gear to get professional quality results - although, no doubt, it can make your photographs look more professional." As a starting photographer, an author(s) who teaches you to make the most out of a small amount of gear, for me, deserves the most praise and admiration. Not everyone starts out with a huge amount of money nor the endorsement of a huge corporation. For majority of the books I have read, the authors started out when they were given a film camera etcetera.

Anyway, back to the book...

The book teaches you how to set up your garage to be your studio, how to use different lighting set ups, even the difference between bounced light and diffused light. It has tips on how to use backdrops, how to shoot babies, even how to shoot people with eye glasses. It shows the different personas of the model based on the expression on her face.

For the second half of the book, the authors asked some photographers to share their own photographs and the techniques that they used in capturing the shot. It is nice to have different perspectives from different photographers contained in one book. It is nice to have glimpses on how fashion/portrait/glamour photographers work.

One thing that I think I won't be able to learn on my own, much less do myself, is how to master putting on make up on a model. I think I'll just hire someone when I get to that point. Or hope that my client would do the make up on her/his own. Yep, glamour and fashion photography are part of my goals...

This book is highly recommended for those who want to learn, or extend their know-how, about portrait photography.