Please recommend a portraiture book

dEARlEADER · Oct 8, 2008

I see quite a few on amazon. Anyone been through them that can suggest the best?

Ideally, the book would have sections on both indoor and outdoor portraiture. Lighting and posing fundamentals for various subjects... male, female, fat people, thin people, dark skinned, fair skinned etc..

Bifurcator · Oct 8, 2008

"Digital Art Photography for Dummies" and "Digital Photography All-In-One Desk Reference For Dummies" both have lots of interesting info on portraiture in them. The later is like 8 books in one and a superset of the first.

dEARlEADER · Oct 8, 2008

Bifurcator said:
"Digital Art Photography for Dummies" and "Digital Photography All-In-One Desk Reference For Dummies" both have lots of interesting info on portraiture in them. The later is like 8 books in one and a superset of the first.

Aren't them books for dumb people?? What are you calling me dumb? :madass:

For your information I've scored the highest aptitude results among all my peers here in jail.....

kidding.... these seem like general photography books.... i imagine portraiture only occupies a chapter or two?

Bifurcator · Oct 8, 2008

About 50 or 60 pages as I recall on the topic. But then there's 100 or so on lighting that applies, and other topics that apply either directly or indirectly. You can download these books before you buy if you like. Don't tell us or ask how tho!

BTW, statistics show that the percentage of geniuses in the Jail population of modern USA is several TIMES higher than it is in the unincarcerated populous. Canada is the same. Russia and Northern Europe are different tho.

dEARlEADER · Oct 8, 2008

anyone read this:

The Portrait Photographer's Guide to Posing - Bill Hurter

or this by chance

Light: Science and Magic: An Introduction to Photographic Lighting - Steven Biver

kundalini · Oct 8, 2008

What I can recommend it to NOT spend the dosh for Bryan Peterson's book Beyond Portraiture. It's only OK IMO, there must be something better out there.

Light: Science and Magic is a good read for understanding the science of light, however, I also use it in lieu of a sleeping pill. Still haven't finished it.

dEARlEADER · Oct 8, 2008

kundalini said:
What I can recommend it to NOT spend the dosh for Bryan Peterson's book Beyond Portraiture. It's only OK IMO, there must be something better out there.

Light: Science and Magic is a good read for understanding the science of light, however, I also use it in lieu of a sleeping pill. Still haven't finished it.

lol... i already knew to stay away from peterson and his "story telling" antics...

JerryPH · Oct 9, 2008

[ame="http://www.amazon.com/Master-Lighting-Guide-Portrait-Photographers/dp/1584281251/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1223544555&sr=8-1"]Master Lighting Guide for Portrait Photography[/ame]. I think it is very good, however as you can see [ame="http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_ss_gw?url=search-alias%3Daps&field-keywords=Master+Lighting+Guide+for+Portrait++Photography&x=0&y=0"]HERE[/ame], there are a lot of pretty good books out there on the subject.

dEARlEADER · Oct 9, 2008

JerryPH said:
Master Lighting Guide for Portrait Photography. I think it is very good, however as you can see HERE, there are a lot of pretty good books out there on the subject.

thanks jerry i was looking at that one..... a lot of the portrait photog books on amazon are unrated by user (or only have one or two ratings) .... so every little bit here helps...

JerryPH · Oct 9, 2008

dEARlEADER said:
Light: Science and Magic: An Introduction to Photographic Lighting - Steven Biver

This is NOT a book about portrait photography. It is a very DRY and factual recitation about how to understand lighting from the perspective of photography.

Yes, it is an important book for the intermediate-advanced photographer, but it will do almost NOTHING for your portrait needs.

The one I suggested focuses on using lighting techniques to accomplish well known industry lighting methods. However, there is no rule out there that says that you cannot apply almost every technique in this book to a ambient lighting scenario using the sun as your light source and a few reflectors.