Digital Portrait Photography: Art, Business & Style
- ISBN13: 9781600593352
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- Notes: Brand New from Publisher. No Remainder Mark.
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Product DescriptionMost amateurs dream of taking professional-quality portraits; Steve Sint can show them how. After shooting over a million portraits, he has a wealth of knowledge to share, on everything from the basics of good composition to the fine details of advanced lighting techniques. Sint simply delivers a complete course in digital portrait photography: he discusses set-ups and backdrops; the most flattering ways to pose both individuals and groups; tips on making the sessio. . . More >>
December 13th, 2009 at 2:55 pm
The book concentrates on the traditional portrait photography business in all senses and seems ill-suited for contemporary business and photography style.
There are some good tips, but you really have to search hard for them – Steve sometimes forgets that the book is meant to be a reference, not a memoir: he spends many pages in each chapter comparing film to digital and telling stories about his early years. But the worst is his tone and style of writing – there’s constant irony about “other photographers” who do everything wrong, while he does it right. For example, the book starts with “As I scan the portrait photography titles at Barnes&Nobles store or online, I often laugh to myself”. The book could be 1/5th of its size, if only he would skip all the uncalled-for chatter.
Last but not least – photographs featured in the book are horrible – un-inspiring, dated and way over-processed. Although he seems to be the author only to the posing examples featuring one model and pictures of the lightning equipment, how could you select something of this sort to be published (including a back-focused image on the cover!)?!
I did not enjoy the book and wouldn’t recommend it to anyone.
Rating: 2 / 5
December 13th, 2009 at 3:39 pm
I say purchase this book, if for no other reason than I’m on the cover!
But if you need more, Steve Sint is obviously a well-established authority in this field, and if you really want to take your digital photography business to a higher level, he is the ingenius photographer to help you do so! I promise that you won’t be disappointed!
Rating: 5 / 5
December 13th, 2009 at 5:41 pm
This book is one I purchased with Monte Zucker’s book. I like them both. I find this one has a lot more information in it, but some aspects of the book are not done well. For value, this book beats Monte’s book because it has so much information. For quality of presentation, editing and imagery, Monte’s book makes this one turn red.
The cover photo, as someone else said, is rather obviously back focused. . . he focused on her ear, apparently, and the highlights are blown out. On top of that, it’s not a portrait so much as it’s a model portfolio pic. What’s the difference? A portrait is showing you the person, and giving you some idea pf who they are. The portfolio pic is giving you an idea of how pretty they can be made up, but not showing you WHO they are. The difference is emotion versus looks, and this image is not a portrait by this (my) definition. It doesn’t speak well of a book, in my opinion, when the cover image isn’t properly focused, exposed or defined.
But it doesn’t end there. Oddly enough, I can’t find very many images at all in the book that were done by the author except for illustrative purposes. . . for instance, showing you what a highlight looks like when you’re photographing a reflective surface using diffuser A, B or C. Huh? Why are the images from everyone else?
The text of the book is good. Meaty and informative. The book is definitely worth having for that, but several things about the book leave you wondering if it wasn’t just rushed out the door without really paying much attention and doing it right.
So I have given this book 4 stars, because the information is good and well worthwhile, but the book as a whole isn’t quite up to the level of polish and professionalism I would expect.
Rating: 4 / 5
December 13th, 2009 at 6:38 pm
I agree with what most of the previous reviewers have written about Steve and this book and apologize for repeating some of the same ideas that they have already conveyed. I was at a one-evening presentation / demo / workshop that he did at Adorama (a photography shop in NYC) and received this book for free (after paying the fee for the workshop).
Steve is a very very experienced professional who has shot many many portraits over many years. He has figured out what works, why it works and what doesn’t work and he is a very practical (and value-oriented) practitioner of his craft. Steve explains his points in easy-to-understand prose. He covers a wealth of subjects related to portraiture including the choice and use of equipment (from cameras to lighting equipment to backgrounds to posing supports), the posing of people and their faces, makeup, and the business side of being a professional being tasked to take a portrait. He covers a huge breadth of material with reasonable depth in each area and with generally good illustrations and images to illustrate his points. If you only buy one book on portraiture then this would be a great choice. On the other hand, if you are only interested in exploring in depth one area related to portraiture (i. e. cameras, lighting, posing, makeup, business etc) then a book only covering the one area might be a better choice with this book as a very good general introduction to any of these areas. I am very comfortable in highly recommending this book and Steve as a teacher.
Rating: 5 / 5
December 13th, 2009 at 7:06 pm
I have numerous portrait photography books and I think this is the best of the bunch. I wanted to learn how to properly use my monolights and my light meter. This author teaches you how to do it all. I have dozens of photography books and I was surprised that a book of this quality was so inexpensive. As the title says, this is exactly the book I was looking for and I finally found it. Highly recommended.
Rating: 5 / 5