Not what I expected. I was hoping for something along the lines of studio lighting for senior portraits and such... At least something along those lines... The information on studio lighting was brief and not in depth...
I already understand outdoor lighting and how to use available light...
I guess if that is what you want to know than this is the book for you. It just wasn't what I was looking for. The photos in this book were not very impressive. They should have modernized it a bit.

I am new to portraiture, studio lighting and many other facets of portrait photography. I found this book to be most instructive. The index is complete and easy to follow. Therefore, I can find definitions, implementations, uses, etc. very quickly. I don't like reading page after page trying to find a particular detail...I would rather go to the index, do a word search, find the information I need and implement. I can do that with this book.

This book covers all of the bases. It includes everything from equipment to lighting to posing. There is even a section on post processing. It is organized well and written in a very clear manner. I think that it serves the serious photographer well. Pros may need a bit more detail however.

This book covers all of the bases. It includes everything from equipment to lighting to posing. There is even a section on post processing. It is organized well and written in a very clear manner. I think that it serves the serious photographer well. Pros may need a bit more detail however.

This book is a must-have for beginning photographers. It covers so many different aspects of photography, from equipment needed(and estimated costs), to lighting, editing software, posing, creative techniques, starting your own business, composition, etc. I would recommend this book to anyone who was getting into digital photography & was looking to buy their first book!

While reading this book, I found myself taking notes constantly. The wealth of information is outstanding and it really helped me make choices as to my future lighting purchases. I would certainly recommend this book for any photographer wishing to start portrait photography.

Great book with all the information to get you started and keep you going. It also has the answers for the questions you forgot you had. You would need to review several books to get all the info packed into this one. If you need help check out [...].

This book is well written and a very good guide to a novice photographer like myself. It does explain and get the message across in simple terms. It will surely be a good guide for all photographers amateur or otherwise. I consider this a must have!!

After buying a new camera I decided to set up a studio at home. I bought several books on the subject and found that this book has given me the most information overall.

This is the second Jamieson's book I bought. Her first book on photoblog is not that good. I tired her book again because of the favorable comments readers made here. Again, I am disappointed.

I take photographs for 3 years and I am a part time wedding photographer myself.

The part on lighting, INMO, is lack in information. Most of the pictures in the book is not shot by the author, so I think she didn't have enough photos to illustrate what she wants to say. The lighting is boring, and most of the photos are taken by ringlight, which is not even mentioned in the book (So why did she include them in the book to illustrate the text?) Ms. Katherine did mention that different lightings should be used on different faces. Pointed nose, high cheek should be treated differently. But how? She didn't use picture to show us. A good photograph book should use pictures to supplement the texts. For lighting, I recommend Christoper Grey's book, which gives us many examples.

The posing part is not much better. The writer shows her difficulty to find the suitable picture to put with the text. The pose is boring, with most of them head and shoulder portraits (Is that because her studio not big enough to take full body portrait?). The style of the pic repeats pages after pages with no creativity injected in them. She made many tips on posing but in most case, couldn't find a suitable picture to clearly shows the effect.

I could not comment on the post processing part because I throw the book away before i reach that section.

There are better book out there. Save your money on a better one.

An excellent presentation of lighting for photography. My personal benefit was from the section on 'casual portraits' which may be applied to improved family photos. This book does a good job of including information from the beginner to the professional.
Some may not appreciate the advanced topics that require thousands of dollars of equipment to operate in a professional studio but that is an example of the range of information.
As a medium level photographer I skimmed some sections and studied others. I found it to be very beneficial and recommend it to anyone who experiences and difficulty that may be the result of not understaning lighting.

I found the book very dense with information - good information . However, I think this is best suited to people interested in persuing a professional career as a photographer or a really serious devotee of the subject. It is not a book you can pick up and find quick helpful tips; you have to really read and digest the info offered. I returned it for this reason though I feel the book was well written it just wasn't what I was looking for at this time.

My photographs have improved over time to the point where I realized how poor my skills were at taking pictures of people. I looked for several books until I found this one. It seemed like it might be helpful. I was very pleased to find the book was exactly what I was looking for. It is written in a conversational style that concise but interesting. The book covers the special compositional skills required for good portraiture as well as practical guidelines to help overcome common posing challenges (such as irregular facial features). Studio lighting has always been a bit of a mystery to me. The chapter on lighting shows how to get started with a few basic studio setups and how various lighting elements interact with the subject.
The book also covers different types of portraiture, a brief overview of starting a portrait business, digital editing and even how to work with models. I would encourage anyone trying to improve their "people pictures" or who is interested in portraiture to read this book.

After reading the description on the back cover of what I would find in the book... and then reading the book.. I was left thinking huh???? Did I miss something???

Although the book does have a few good tips, it does not deliver on what the description says it will. Many items were just glazed over. The biggest flaw was that the image samples did not match the text around them.

Although the book was fully of some cool looking images... many were taken with a ring light (you can tell this by the donut shaped catch light in the models eye). I love the look of ringflash images, but found this very disturbing and out of place in many sections. For example: when reading about main, fill & key lights, lighting ratios, backlighting, side lighting, multiple light setups, etc... then to be shown samples where none of these techniques were used. The images shown were done with a ring light. This can only lead the reader to beleive that they too can get these cool looking images with what is described in the text... and that is misleading, because they can not.

The lighting diagrams were nice, but it would have been a good thing to include actual images taken with these setups, so that the read could understand what the image would look like when using these setups.

I think the Basic Image Editing chapter was very well written with wonderful examples of what was written about. I wish the rest of the book would have been done as well as this chapter.

I loved all the cool images.. it was very refreshing to see hip new shots. Maybe they should have been in a different book though.. maybe one on taking cool images with alternative lighting.. like the ring flash.

I got this book to speed me along the way to being a better portrait photographer. One of the things that I was looking for was a thorough discussion of lighting. I felt that the lighting discussion in the book was shallow in that I finished the book without any idea of what sort of lighting equipment I should acquire. If you already have studio lights, and want more ideas on how to improve your work, then this book is for you. If you want to take better photos with existing light then this is a good book.

I've read eight different books on portrait photography and this is by far the best one. I highly recommend it for anyone from the beginner who just wants better snapshots of their kids or family to the serious amateur who wants to learn how to take pro-looking, posed portraits. The book also covers lots of useful stuff on lighting in addition to posing. What I like about this book is you can get useful and practical stuff out of it no matter how much time you have. If you spend 10 minutes paging through chapter 5 on posing, you will immediately improve your portrait composition. If you spend more time understanding different lighting options (natural and flash), you'll improve even more.

A very practical book and significantly better than all the other ones on this subject that I've read.

This is one of the most well written and comprehensive books on portraiture that I have read in a long time. Very though and engaging- this book covers a lot of ground but does in such a way that the reader never becomes bored. This is a book about portrait photography, and the 1st half of it really applies to both film and digital. The last part is more photoshop-centric but also awesome.

I first purchased this book to show support for another Flickr member. I figured it would be a nice book about portrait photography with some nice photographs. I was pleasantly surprised when my book arrived and I realized it was a very comprehensive book on the subject of portrait photography!

I have to tell you...I think this is the best book on portrait photography and lighting that I've read to date. I have quite a few books on the subject, and I wish this one had been released sooner. Would have saved me a few bucks. :D

The book is well written and easy to understand. It has great lighting setup diagrams, and the best part is the collection of wonderful photo examples. Every other photography book out there seems to have the most out-dated photos! Most of them look like they were taken in the 80s, but these are current and just fantastic.

The book also gives SPECIFIC examples for headshots, glamour shots, and other portrait scenarios which is unbelievably helpful. It will probably become my new photography bible. LOL

Photography is a technical art form, and it's easy to get bogged down in things like apertures, shutter speeds, and lighting ratios. So many other books out there seem to "dumb down" the technical side of photography, much to my dismay, but this book is a good balance between the two. I highly recommend it to anyone out there who's interested in portrait photography.

Many thanks to Catherine and everyone else who helped out with the book! It's wonderful. :)