Strong Sales for New eBook!

I'm happy to report that, in the first two days of its release, sales of my new eBook, Flash-Free Portrait Photography: How to Shoot Awesome Portraits in Natural Light, have exceeded my expectations by a long shot! In fact, in the first 48-hours of its release -- which  is still a few hours away at the time of this writing -- sales of my new eBook have surpassed the first 48-hours (of their releases) of my previous three eBooks combined. Not only that, but I'm getting really good feedback from some of the people who have already read it. All that has me anxious to begin writing my next book. (It was nearly two years since the release of my last eBook and this new book, by the way.)

I was going to next author an eBook on video production techniques for photographers but that idea is now moved back. I'm still going to write that eBook, but not just now. Instead, what I've decided I'm going to do is write something of a sequel to my new natural-light portrait book. A "Volume 2" if you will. (Hey! Hollywood makes sequels all the time. Why not me?)  Anyway, I'm going to author a new book that takes all the information in the natural-light portraiture eBook and then adds artificial light into the mix.

It seems to me that, these days, many newer photographers kind of have it backwards in terms of their learning goals. Instead of learning to shoot with real skill using natural light, they almost immediately jump into flash photography. Call me Old School Jimmy but doing so seems to me like putting carts before horses.

I'll bet some of you older, more experienced shooters learned to shoot in natural light, i.e,. you honed those skills, before you jumped into flash photography. I'm not talking about snapshots with flash, but more formal portraiture of all kinds.  What some newer photographers don't seem to fully appreciate is that much of the basics of flash photography is rooted in natural-light photography. Understanding light begins with understanding natural light. Then, equipped with that knowledge and know-how, it makes more sense to move on to integrating artificial light with natural light, and then learning to shoot with artificial light on its own, e.g.,  in a studio. Call me crazy but that sort of progression makes more sense to me; more so, that is, than learning to shoot with strobes and flashes first and then moving (backwards?) to natural light+flash and then, finally, learning to shoot (with skill) with natural light alone.

My next eBook will not include shooting with artificial light in studios or other interior locations. Rather, it will be solely focused on integrating artificial light (by using small flash instruments or larger strobes) with natural light.

Like my latest eBook, the next book will be useful for photographers shooting all types of portraits-- from seniors to business portraits, head shots for actors to babies and kids, engagement and wedding photos, fashion and glamour, family portraits, images for social media and so on.  In fact, I've already started writing it. (As well as planning for the custom photos I'll be shooting for it.) I hope to have my next  eBook (which I don't yet have a title for) completed by this September.  It's going to be my exciting summer project!