Picture Perfect Practice: A Self-Training Guide to Mastering the Challenges of Taking World-Class Photographs Author: Roberto Valenzuela | Language: English | ISBN:
B00795G1LG | Format: EPUB
Picture Perfect Practice: A Self-Training Guide to Mastering the Challenges of Taking World-Class Photographs Description
Foreword by Skip Cohen
Translating the chaos of the real world into a breathtakingly simple, beautiful photograph can often seem like an impossible task. With busy, cluttered backgrounds and subjects who don’t know how to pose, how can you take control and get a great shot no matter the situation? In
Picture Perfect Practice, photographer Roberto Valenzuela breaks down the craft of photography into three key elements–locations, poses, and execution–that you can use to unlock the photographic opportunities lying beneath every challenging situation.
Valenzuela stresses the need for photographers to actively practice their craft every day–just like you would practice a musical instrument–in order to master the art of making great images. With chapters that offer practice exercises to strengthen your photographic abilities, you’ll learn how to approach a scene, break it down, and see your way to a great photograph. The Location section features chapters that cover symmetry, balance, framing, color elements, textures, and much more. The Posing section includes the Five Key Posing Techniques that Valenzuela uses every time he’s shooting people, as well as a complete list of poses and how to achieve, customize, and perfect them. The Execution portion, with sections like “Lighting through Direction” and “Simplicity through Subtraction,” reveals Valenzuela’s overall approach to getting the shot. The book also includes an inspiring and helpful chapter on deliberate practice techniques, where Valenzuela describes his system for practicing and analyzing his work, which leads to constant improvement as a photographer.
If you’ve been frustrated and overwhelmed by the challenges of real-world locations, posing your subjects, or executing a great image–or if you simply want to become a better shooter but don’t know where to start–
Picture Perfect Practice gives you the tools and information you need to finally become the kind of photographer you’ve always wanted to be: the kind who can confidently walk into any location, under any lighting condition, with any subject, and know that you can create astonishing photographs that have a timeless impact.
- File Size: 36989 KB
- Print Length: 360 pages
- Simultaneous Device Usage: Up to 5 simultaneous devices, per publisher limits
- Publisher: New Riders; 1 edition (February 14, 2012)
- Sold by: Amazon Digital Services, Inc.
- Language: English
- ASIN: B00795G1LG
- Text-to-Speech: Enabled
X-Ray:
- Lending: Not Enabled
- Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #54,995 Paid in Kindle Store (See Top 100 Paid in Kindle Store)
- #15
in Books > Arts & Photography > Photography > Lifestyle & Events - #35
in Kindle Store > Kindle eBooks > Arts & Photography > Photography > Reference - #53
in Kindle Store > Kindle eBooks > Arts & Photography > Photography > Digital Photography
- #15
in Books > Arts & Photography > Photography > Lifestyle & Events - #35
in Kindle Store > Kindle eBooks > Arts & Photography > Photography > Reference - #53
in Kindle Store > Kindle eBooks > Arts & Photography > Photography > Digital Photography
This book is different. It approaches photography from the artistic side, not the technical side. You occasionally hear comments like "shooting with a small aperture" or "with an off-camera flash", but this is about as technical as it gets. Valenzuela does not discuss camera menus, gear choice, or lighting ratios. If you don't know what these terms mean, you'll need to look elsewhere (these are important things to know, no doubt). That being said, there are literally hundreds of information sources (many of them free) where you get that sort of technical information.
Valenzuela's book rather approaches the topics from a creative/artistic point of view: it teaches you how to recognize geometry in the scenes you are shooting; how to reduce the background clutter by finding "simple" structures that are effective compositional elements; why a picture needs "balance" and how you can use elements you find in the scene to achieve balance; which expressions and messages you send by taking silhouettes; which emotions do you evoke by which method of posing; how do you effectively pose a subject; etc. The book addresses the "why", as in "what's the message you are providing with this method?"; "why would you want to choose this approach?", at least as much as the "how".
And this book does that in an ingenious way: very short chapters, dedicated to one simple concept (shadow, silhoettes, balance, geometry, etc.). You can read each chapter in 5-15 minutes. The chapters are illustrated by pictures that are both excellent, and "approachable". Meaning: while many of the pictures are by all means fantastic, they are not so out-of-this-world artistically mind blowing that you look at them and feel "never in a million years will I be capable of producing something like that".
I have read more books than I can keep track of, trying to grasp photography as an art form. While I love photography, I am not a natural at it and have to work for every shot I get. I've pursued book after book to no avail. . . until this one. Within the first chapter I was already having "aha!" moments.
1. It is presented as exactly what I was looking for----"art"---rather than technical jargon. I got what he was saying because it made practical sense, without algorithms and camera jargon to try to understand in order to create pretty shots that grab the heart.
2. It's broken into a chart in the beginning that can be taken to any shoot (pull out the page, copy it down to a small card size, and laminate it) to remind of every concept in the book. From framing to finding the best at the location you're at even when it seems dismal to unique composition.
3. Each chapter has small bite-sized sections with assignments after each section (which hones in on each square in the chart given at the beginning). The assignments seemed too easy at first (find all the main shapes in your surroundings and take pictures of them) but they truly do build up from the foundation on, to add to a newbie photographer's knowledge and skill building.
If you can only buy one book in your pursuit of becoming a photographer that takes beautiful photos that tell stories to their observers, this is THE book you'll want to buy. Unless, of course, you want technical jargon. In that case, any other book on the Amazon list that came up on search, will do.
PS---as far as the reviews that this is a misleading book because it turns out it's about wedding photography, the author states at the outset he is a wedding photographer so those are the photos he uses to teach his concepts.
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