The Portrait: Understanding Portrait Photography is a book void of all personality, which is ironic, considering how ‘personable’ the process of portraiture is. I would rate The Portrait a shade less robotic than an actual manual. I could be a bit harsh because the previous few books had obvious emotion infused into the chapters.
Poor layout of the book shocked me almost as much. Photography is a visual medium, how does a book get published with such poor attention to detail.
Not all is bad and lost in this book. There are some beautiful examples of photographer’s work, nice mathematical breakdowns of complex subjects and a fantastic series of examples for moving lights.
Pros:
Chapter 2 had fantastic examples of different lighting techniques and results they yield.
Early in Chapter 5 the authors describe exposure in mathematical formula that helps simplify the important task! Page 69 in particular is cram-packed with goodness.
The posing chapter is a good read. I found lots of helpful information here, some basic, some complex.
Cons:
The “very brief history” seemed to drag on and on. I’m not a huge history buff but it took a lot to get through these 24 pages (roughly 13% of the entire book).
As early as chapter 2 there are multiple times a sentence gets cut off by the end of the page and does not continue for MULTIPLE pages later! Example: The last sentence on page 34 gets clipped and does not continue until page 40! Six pages! And intensifying this problem was that I wanted to spend time on those six pages.
Some parts mention a method and stop there. No clear instructions/suggestions. Page 72 mentions substituting a gray card for metering exposures, but that’s it. Another example of this con is in the ‘facial analyses’ section. The authors mention how glasses can be a bit tricky but offer no insight to handle the situation.
That all being said, I have to say this book can be skipped. The lack of emotion, distracting layout, and overall ‘manual-feel’ is not enough to overtake the pro’s.
Monkey Butler Ninja gives The Portrait by Glenn Rand and Tim Meyer 2 out of 5 stars.
The layout of this book needs a serious overhaul. Perhaps an additional editor with some layout and design skills.
