Master Lighting Guide for Portrait Photographers

Thanks to those of you who have purchased -- via the link on this blog -- from Amazon.com, I've earned commissions from those sales. I prefer to take my commissions in the form of gift certificates and, with those gift certificates, I've purchased some books that tweaked my curiosity. Recently, one of the books I ordered was Christopher Grey's, "Master Lighting Guide for Portrait Photographers," from Amherst Media.

Amazon describes the book thusly: "Time-tested lighting strategies that will improve the quality of a portrait are detailed in this book for beginning photographers. Terminology used by industry pros is explained, the equipment needed to create professional results is outlined, and the unique role that each element of the lighting setup plays in the studio is explored. Photographers learn how color, direction, form, and contrast affect the final portrait. The concise text, photo examples, and lighting diagrams enable photographers to easily achieve traditional lighting styles that have been the basis of good portraiture since the advent of the art."

Personally, I didn't find this book so completely basic that it didn't keep my attention. Nor did it seem aimed solely at newbie beginners just starting out, although it's a great book for those people. Yeah, there's plenty in it that is remedial for more experienced shooters but sometimes a bit of remedial education can be a good thing. As Amazon states, Grey's book focuses on traditional lighting styles for portraiture. Sometimes, even those of us who shoot often and/or for a living can use a quick refresher course in the basics.

Everything in Grey's book isn't remedial. For instance, he describes a light modifier he calls a a reverse cookie. When I first read that, I thought, "Huh? What's a reverse cookie?" Turns out it's a piece of thin plywood (painted black) or black foamcore or something similar with a bunch of jagged, broken, pieces of mirror that are glued, haphazardly, on the surface. Grey uses it to bounce light onto a background. It's different from a traditional cookie in that the light is bounced off of it rather than passing through it and it produces a cool and unique effect. I'm going to make myself one of those reverse cookies real soon.

If you're looking for a good portrait lighting book that's easy to digest and is mostly about proven and traditional portrait lighting techniques, I'd recommend this book.

The image at the top was shot by Leesa J. She was shooting some behind-the-scenes images of Tera Patrick and I during a recent shoot and she snapped this one while Tera was posing for me. I really like this image. In fact, I think it's better than the stuff I shot during that particular set of images. Damn! She stole my thunder with this one!!! I guess it's a good thing my ego usually stays relatively in check. Oh well... What'a'ya gonna do? Right?