Monkey Butler Ninja

Photography in 100 Words is a charming collection of outstanding photographs. Fifty fantastic pieces of art by fifty different photographers. Each spread has one of the artist’s pieces on the right and a write up on the left.

Imagine getting into an elevator, right behind you follows a famous professional photographer who happens to have one piece you absolutely love. A conversation then follows about that piece, then the elevator reaches the floor and the two of you part ways.

This book will take you on that elevator ride with 50 photographers.

I’m not sure how if it was David Clark or the Focal Press team who is responsible for the layout of this book, but they deserve to be recognized for their work. It’s clean, it flows, it is sharp. I question the shrink wrapped decision but the book being a short read may have something to do with it.

Who is this book for? After reading through it, I’d say it will make a nice coffee table book in a studio. Certainly one I am proud to have in my collection.

I wouldn’t call this suggestion a critique, and barely a suggestion at that. More of a curiosity of how this book would have been if, instead of one picture and one short write up, we would have had a series of four or five photographs. Certainly not 50 different photographers in this case, but it probably would have drawn me in to a more personable connection, and not the elevator encounter.

Monkey Butler Ninja gives Photography in 100 Words 4 ninja stars out of 5.

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.

Visual Poetry by Chris Orwig

What an interesting book!

A little about me, I’m a long time professional videographer and hobbyist photographer. Recently (4months ago) I began offering photography as part of my freelance services. I understand my DSLR and am gaining experience.

So, that’s me as a photographer, what did I feel about this book?

The bulk of the content is random short SHORT essays. It seems that Chris Orwig is a great teacher and has written down some of his better philosophical speeches/pitches. Collected all those notes organized them into a few categories, slapped a name on those categories and called them chapters. There isn’t a lot of continuity stringing one essay to the next. In fact, if the traditional chapter structure was yanked out of the book it would work just the same.

An overwhelming pro of this style of writing is you can just pick it up and go! Comparable to the Art of War, or the book of Psalms. Lots of great short sections of knowledge. I was reading this book and listening to the audio book for The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People at the same time. If you are familiar with this book, you will find it actually has a lot of things in common and Visual Poetry could be the 7-habbits version FOR photographers.

The book teaches you how to approach photography in a meaningful, philosophical, poetic way. NOT a technical way. If you are looking for details in the technical aspect, skip this book.

Making up for the absences of technical instruction is the ‘Workshop Assignments.’ These are a REAL gem. Mimicking a classroom structure Orwig gives you an assignment with multiple levels to complete. In this section is also a hefty amount of resources (with short descriptions) and sharing instructions (well, suggestions if you DON’T approach this as a classroom setup).

I have probably half a dozen post-it notes sticking out of this book, marking sections to revisit. Nearly all of them are the Workshop Assignments that I plan to fulfill. I believe these are the tools that will actually improve your product. The rest of the book improves your approach.

Chris Orwig interviews a couple professional photographers at the conclusion of the chapters, titled ‘guest speakers.’ He highlight’s their accomplishments and skill sets, then proceeds to ask them questions that I’m sure we ALL would love to ask.

Who is this book for?
1. The person that is JUST starting out and understand the basic technical side of their camera.
2. The pro photographer that is in a bit of a rut and could use some inspiration.

If you are one of the two people above, I’d rate Visual Poetry 4 out of 5 stars! The only reason a star is missing is because of the lack of technical instruction, not just actual photography but the ‘business section’ could have had the chapter renamed to something like ‘thoughts on business’ because there was VERY little content there. Overall great job Chris and thank you for the insight!

The Complete Guide to Professional Wedding Photography: Creating a more profitable and fulfilling business. By Damien Lovegrove

Over the past few months I have dedicated a portion of my efforts to Photography, customers seeking a range from baby portraits to weddings. I am a firm believer in the development of your trade, and to walk the walk I grabbed a few books on Photography.

The Complete Guide to Professional Wedding Photography is a stunning book. It is a wide format and hardcover, which makes it stand out from my recent books. Choosing these features screams ‘I care about quality!’ And all it takes is to thumb through a few of the pictures to realize not only does Damien Lovegrove care about quality, he executes.

Stunning photographs populate every page and all are accompanied by some information. Some examples are f-stop, exposure and ISO; then a couple of lines telling you about the photo.

I found myself wanting more, just as the saying goes, ‘Give someone and inch.’ On the photographs about halfway through I started wondering what specific lens was used, what were the settings on the flash. This is not a technical manual however. Another situation I was left wanting more was a point where Lovegrove mentioned a specific style he uses *I believe it was for the first dance* but did not show an example or describe it.

The book is a fairly quick read, mainly due to the abundance of photographs. I do challenge readers to take their time flipping through. Study and see what makes a photograph a piece of art. Lovegrove will be there along the way pointing details and strategies out for you.

Towards the end, the book discusses branding and gives examples on what I consider a mammoth scale that I really would imagine only the top 1% of photographers gets to. It’s nice to see this in the book but wonder if that was executed in an efficient matter. The section (earlier) that discusses goals was a real gem! This example, which was similar, can be applied to everyone.

Over all I’d give this a 4.5 out of 5! So since Amazon doesn’t let a technical monkey like me put in percentages, I will round up. Great book Damien Lovegrove. Photographers; Go out and get it today!