Those of you interested in Lightroom 4—with the caveat that you need to be the kind of person who learns software well from books (not everyone does)—might want to check out Martin Evening's new Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 4 Book: The Complete Guide for Photographers. Martin has a reputation for producing the most comprehensive and complete instructional books, the corollary being that they're not the most accessible (try Scott Kelby's The Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 4 Book for Digital Photographers, due May 18th, for that). I'm not the least bit qualified to actually review this book, because I don't use Lightroom and I'm a bit of a nitwit with software anyway, but it's a magnificent book—hefty, thoroughly organized, and copiously illustrated. I suspect most people wouldn't read this per se but will use it like a one-volume encyclopedia, looking up whatever they need to know at the time.
It's dedicated to the late Bruce Fraser, originally the author of Real World Camera Raw and Real World Image Sharpening, two of the most important and influential technical books of the digital era.
Vincent Laforet
Here's another interesting-looking book that's gotten a bit lost in the shuffle. Following the phenomenal success of Joe McNally's The Moment It Clicks, which was a big bestseller in its category, another editorial/assignment photographer of equal stature has produced a visual tour of how he works. Vincent Laforet's Visual Stories gives a good selection of his work with explanatory text and a lot of practical advice and technical details along the way.
Just as knowing a subject and teaching it are not exactly the same skills, being very good at something and writing about it engagingly are not exactly the same skills either. Publishers churn out these books at a furious pace, and in many of them you "feel the churn." To put it perhaps a little more bluntly, Vincent's pictures are better than his book. The prose is a bit leaden, and the tone of the advice is of one who is, shall we say, not entirely accustomed to giving advice to adult photo enthusiasts (I don't know about you, but I don't need to be told to leave the lenscap in the camera bag and that the purpose of a UV filter is actually to protect the front element of the lens). But, throughout, you do get a very good sense of what it's like to be "out there," constantly faced with the challenge of coming up with something new, good, and different in the context of a specific assignment. There's plenty that's practical in the discussions, including some bones thrown to the gearheads.
The book comes with a DVD that has several dozen short QuickTime movies on it. As you know, I don't generally care for videos (it means I have to turn the music off). But I have to say that, as with the book, I found these (I only watched a few) to be a bit undercooked. For instance, the pictures are only shown at the beginning and the end, whereas the time you want to see the image is when he's talking about the specific elements of it. Most of each video is "talking head," except you also see his hands coming into and back out of the frame...so, I found myself distractedly watching his hands fly about as I listened to him say a bunch of stuff that's already in the book. I think it might have been better to do the opposite—begin and end with the talking head shot and show the picture as he talks about it. Also, I see absolutely no point in showing each image starting zoomed in and then slowly zooming out on it until you (briefly) see the whole thing—it's not appropriate when the entire still image is the point of the discussion. The technical information at the end of every video is of little interest and has the feel of filler (feel the churn, baby, feel the churn).
Vincent Laforet has a superb feel for B&W. This picture, taken for the front page beat that he covered for a full two years, had to include a recognizable New York City locale—here the planetarium at the American Museum of
Natural History on Central Park West.
As for the pictures, there are, as you might expect, some great ones, and then some really great ones. You certainly get a strong sense of the vast range required of an editorial photographer. Oddly enough, considering most of his work is in color, Vincent Laforet seems to have an uncommonly good feel for black-and-white—or maybe that's because only his very best B&W shots made the book. He's very fond of anti-tilt-shift, or whatever you call that style—using a tilt-shift to limit depth of field (diorama mode?). It's a technique I don't personally care for—although you might, and he's good at it. He's particularly good with aerial photography, so Visual Stories will be of special interest to anyone who likes aerial photography or wants to try it. (I've only done it once, but I really enjoyed it, and highly recommend the experience.) There are aerial photographs throughout the book.
All in all a reasonably informative albeit not terribly entertaining session spent looking over a top editorial photographer's shoulder.
There's also an eBook version of Visual Stories available from the publisher, but it costs more than Amazon's price for the printed one.
Mike
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Original contents copyright 2012 by Michael C. Johnston and/or the bylined author. All Rights Reserved.
Featured Comment by Bahi: "Opinion about Evening vs. Kelby for Lightroom books compares to opinion on the Mac vs. Windows for operating systems, though there are peacemakers in both areas.
"I've supplied dozens of these books to photographers while delivering Lightroom tuition and have two recommendations that come from the results of that ongoing, multi-year experiment using Kelby's and Evening's LR 2 and LR 3 books.
"First is that if you can afford it and if LR is your main image editing app, you should get both—they're different and offer complementary approaches. As you say, Mike, Evening is very thorough and a good reference.
"The second recommendation to any photographer is to not dismiss the Kelby as having too little information, based on the chatty writing style—Scott has the enviable ability to help you learn without your realising that you're learning. (A rare gift.) Even people who don't particularly like his writing style do find themselves learning quickly using his books. There are now other good LR books appearing, too, the Bampton in particular.
"For those who prefer video learning, Messrs. Reichmann and Schewe do a good turn. They're quite the Vic and Bob of workflow, those two."
Featured Comment by Eamon Hickey: "In case anyone is interested (and begging your pardon, Mike, for gauchely referring people to my own story on a different web site), I wrote a short article on Vincent Laforet's excellent aerials for Rob Galbraith's website a few years ago. It's got a lot of how-he-does-it info for folks interested in the nuts and bolts.
"It also leads off with what is still one of my favorite photographs, an aerial that Vincent shot over Central Park that is one of the most lovely and visually unexpected (yet simple when, after half a second, you grok it) images I've ever seen. For those who like pictures better than articles, you can see it at Vincent's website without my accompanying ramblings."
I hate it when you make me spend money! ;-)
Having upgraded to LR4, I bought the Martin Evening book - I like his style - having seen that it's published. And links to the website are too easy to follow!
Posted by: Mark Cotter | Sunday, 25 March 2012 at 04:19 PM
Martin Evening's books are comprehensive but unfathomable, at least to me. Scott Kelby's are too wry and sarcastic for real life.I've been using D-65s Lightroom Workbook (Resnick and Spritzer) and Lightroom 3, the missing FAQ (Brampton) I imagine that there will be LR 4 versions of these in the near future.
Couldn't agree more with Mike about the Camera Raw and Sharpening books. I was dubious about the sharpening, but it significantly improves the files. Use their numbers as guides and run your own tests for the look you want.
Posted by: Barry Myers | Sunday, 25 March 2012 at 04:24 PM
Mike: Interesting post. I bought Laforet's book about 2 months ago on a whim, and have to second your general notion that the book falls short. For example, it seems important for Laforet to recount how he got those shots at the Olympics, but I doubt that the target audience for this kind of book is going to care all that much.
It seems like the "educational track" is becoming an increasingly important business channel--even a necessity--for many professional photographers, but some are a lot better at it than others. McNally is good at it. You mentioned his "Moment," but I would give an equally strong recommendation to his more recent book, Sketching Light. The focus is narrow (using artificial lighting) and the photos get a bit redundant. But the book is packed with info on how to use speedlights and studio lights, including detailed sketches of lighting setups and his thought process on particular ideas. It's really a good reference for anyone who wants to learn more about using artificial lighting.
Posted by: Terence | Sunday, 25 March 2012 at 04:44 PM
I have admired Vincent Laforet's photographic work for many years. He has one of the best eyes for urban aerial work and big scenes that I've ever seen. But, no, I'm not a candidate for this hobby book. I'd rather just see some of his work well-presented.
I must add that I was rather disappointed when Vincent chose to somewhat manically lead the charge towards dslr video when the 5DII was released. I could not escape feeling that he was being naive wandering into the deep, dark, politically-charged movie woods where he would be a nobody. I hope he's met with good fortune in there but I've heard little of him since.
Posted by: Kenneth Tanaka | Sunday, 25 March 2012 at 06:15 PM
Hi Mike,
For those of us who are visually oriented and don't learn as well from books (as you acknowledged), as an alternative, I highly recommend Michael Reichmann's and Jeff Schewe's Lightroom 4 video tutorial "Introduction & Advanced Guide to Lightroom 4". Once and for all I am going to learn this software.
Chris
Posted by: Christopher Lane | Sunday, 25 March 2012 at 07:05 PM
I always thought the purpose of a UV filter was to allow the camera store to sell a few high-markup items with each lens purchase?
(Runs away from the can of worms)
Posted by: Bernard Scharp | Monday, 26 March 2012 at 03:09 AM
"Once and for all I am going to learn this software."
Isn't that a contradiction in terms? You can't learn software once and for all, because...they're going to change it. Just sayin'.
Mike
Posted by: Mike Johnston | Monday, 26 March 2012 at 07:19 AM
I spent the last couple days reading through a quite good new photography book, The Passionate Photographer, by Steve Simon. Simon has been shooting since he was 11, and was a long-time Canadian photo-journalist before pursuing more personal documentary work. The book is part personal, part instructional, part inspirational, and I found both his photography and his ideas excellent.
Posted by: John Krumm | Monday, 26 March 2012 at 11:49 AM
The "Brampton" book mentioned earlier is The Mssing FAQ by Victoria Bampton, the Lightroom Queen (http://www.lightroomqueen.com). Note that her name has been misspelled by at least two earlier posters.
Posted by: Mark Sirota | Monday, 26 March 2012 at 01:26 PM
What we really need is a Linux based photo editing package with all the good stuff from PS and LR. Forget the 90% of the features that are never used. Then we could toast Winblows and cut the umbilical cord to Apple.
Posted by: Eric Rose | Monday, 26 March 2012 at 02:46 PM
Mike,
Hmmm. Good point. I meant once and for all until Lightroom 5 comes out. Sigh.
Chris
Posted by: Christopher Lane | Monday, 26 March 2012 at 07:02 PM
Sadly, his book follows along with the level of his iPad app, disappointing.
What could (and should) be quite magical given the enormous body of work of Mr. LaForet, becomes somewhat tiring and lacklustre.
Posted by: K Brown | Monday, 26 March 2012 at 08:59 PM