There are a ridiculous amount of photography books on the market.  An overwhelming amount.  I’m a reader, so naturally I wanted to start with a few instructional books a few years back.  Well, my photography obsession has spilled into my reading.  I’ve reads a ridiculous amount of photography books the last year or so.  I decided I’m going to start posting some quick reviews of some of them.  A paragraph or two on what the book is about, then a section with the pros and cons.

I was pretty skeptical about this one as it seems pretty technical when you first read about it.  Family of angles this and specular highlights that, and a bunch of other technical terms.  Although that is all true, this should pretty much be required reading for aspiring photographers.  There are a lot of books that explain light modifiers, and soft light sources etc., but this book does it better than just about any other, and more importantly in my opinion, the writers explain in layman’s terms.  By the third chapter, I couldn’t put it down.  It was a lot of fun experimenting while reading.  There is nothing more satisfying than getting that big “oh yeah, that makes sense” feeling when you figure out how to do something as simple as backlight glass, or how to really control highlights.  Just get it, you won’t regret it, I promise.

Pros:  Has about everything you will ever need to know about light and how to modify it.  It uses a bunch of examples that are easy to duplicate.  That for me is where the real value is, you can follow along in the book and recreate what the authors do.  This is truly how you will see what they are teaching.  Some of the sections get a little tricky, but once you set up your own examples, it all comes together.

Cons:  The books can get a little confusing at times.  You really have to pay attention to each section and not just skim over parts, or you will be lost later in the book.  Treat this book like a text-book.  I advocate the use of ebooks when possible, but this is one book where I would get the hard copy of, just to write in some quick notes.  By the time you finish the book and work on the examples, you really will gain a lot of insight.  Hehe, I just realized I wrote this in the cons.  There really aren’t any cons is what I’m trying to say.