The Portrait: Understanding Portrait Photography

This book is the best lighting for portraiture book I have come across, and I have read more than twenty books on that subject.The author structured the book in a very logical way and it is an easy read. The book covers everything from light sources to light direction to modifiers and their effects on different types of faces plus when they are used in the industry. It also covers exposure and metering, lighting ratios, lighting patterns, facial analysis, and much more. In short, it includes everything I need to know to understand how to light portraits to achieve the look I have in mind.I am a photography student and I learnt a lot from this book, I also think that a beginner as well as an enthusiast will also benefit a lot from this book.I strongly recommend this book for any level. If there is one book you want to buy about portraiture, this should be it.

This book is a great read for anybody wanting to improve their studio work. It is much, much more then place your lights here and hear. The discussion on facial analysts and how to work with different faces alone is worth multiple reads. This is the first book to break it down and describe how to handle so clearly

What good is a book about photography without pictures that illustrate a particular point about lighting? Those viewing from different devices might have a happier experience, but avoid buying this book and trying to read it on the Kindle Cloud Reader. Will pursue a refund.

This is a very good book. I recommend it.

Instructions will never be outdated!

The PortraitThere is a myriad of books on my shelf on the topic of portraiture. Most feature beautiful images shot by the book’s author- indeed, most of these books feel more like coffee table books to view than books with valuable instruction.Glenn Rand and Tim Meyer, in the second edition of The Portrait: Understanding Portrait Photography, have done far more. This book is better seen as a textbook for the photographer who seeks not only ideas on lighting, posing and creatively capturing subjects, but also an understanding of light (and its sources and modification), exposure, color management, composition and facial analysis that leads to the most effective lighting setups.The Portrait examines the history of portraiture and its photographic ancestory found in painting. There are wonderful images illustrating lighting and style- and these are not simply the authors’ works; rather, iconic images are used to illustrate how portraiture was established and how it has developed. Light Dynamics is explored and the reader becomes very capable at assessing shadow placement and edge definition in images with varied light sources and direction. Similar to other texts, a bust is used to teach lighting styles and their impact on both facial illumination and mood, but this book presents it with a brevity and clarity that is unique.There is an attempt to display varied lighting brands in the text. Profoto seems to get top billing- a brand out of economic reach for beginners, but there are other brands reflected in the pages that makes it feel less promotional. I wish speedlights and Alien Bees had made a brief appearance as well, as these are the tools of the novice/student, but one does not feel brand-indoctrinated in these chapters, a common feeling in many other texts.Chapters on Backdrops, Lighting Ratios and Mixed Light Sources are wonderful- they contain the conceptual and the practical. I hope that the next edition covers a rarely-explored subject- mounting hardware. C-clamps, stands, backdrop mounting and other tools to answer the very pragmatic question of how one supports lighting seems always absent from portrait texts.Finally, the chapter on Facial Analysis helps to generate a sense of when to- and more importantly, when not to light a face in certain ways. For the most striking impact there are rules and guidelines that the portrait artist must understand- to ignore them is to make mistakes or succeed only through trial and error attempts.The Portrait: Understanding Portrait Photography is a must-have book for anyone who is trying to best capture the human face and body. A blend of the historic, the esoteric and the practical, it is an introductory volume that can’t be beat as an introduction to serious portraiture. It will be my choice the next time I run a class on portrait-making,

A good portrait shows the viewer something more than just the exterior of a person. I read the second edition of this book to see if the authors could tell me how to do that.The book is technical in nature and takes a classical approach to the subject. After a brief history of portraiture, it explores the nature of lighting the portrait with respect to the placement of lighting equipment and the play of light and shadow on the face of the subject. Next the authors explore setting the proper exposure, and lighting ratios. The authors explore the planes of the human face and lighting patterns for the face. They explain lighting setups, with from one light to several. The authors discuss backgrounds, mixed natural and electronic flash, composition, posing and facial analysis and finish with advice on relating to the subject. The book is illustrated with sets of images of an illuminated bust and a single main model and photographs by a variety of famous and should-be-famous portraitists.Light is really the heart of the book. Equipment is discussed generically, so if you want to know about what electronic flash to use or how a light stand works you will have to go elsewhere. But assuming you know how your equipment works, and understand fundamentals like exposure and focusing, the concepts presented here should enable one to capture a good portrait.In the review of a prior edition I complained that the authors referred regularly to the use of an incident light meter and ignored the reflective light meter found in most cameras but this has been remedied. There is still reference to light ratios, which seem a slight anomaly in the digital age, but I now see how a familiarity with the topic can help a digital photographer in his or her setup.I'm happy to report there is no discussion of putting babies in cute hats or piling up suit cases in the woods. On the other hand there is little discussion of how to convert one's vision of the soul of the subject into a lighting pattern, but I have yet to come upon a book that does that. Perhaps the only way to learn that is to study the great portraitists in photography, drawing, painting and so forth.If you understand that with portraits, as with all photography, it is the handling of light that allows the photographer to express his or her vision, this book will be of value to you.

I didn't find this book particularly enlightening.