Portrait

Portraits
$19.95
This collection of magnificent portraits makes a wonderful gift or coffee-table purchase. Steve McCurry (fellow Penn Stater and my all-time favorite photographer) has such a unique and remarkable gift - he captures the soul of the individual, whether two months old or one hundred years old, in a seemingly effortless manner. His portraits tell a story in the blink of a moment and I find them absolutely compelling and haunting and natural. I can't recommend his works and this book highly enough.

If I had to gripe, I would say that I wish the book was larger and that the author had added accompanying text. Although the portraits themselves do not need any written commentary to enable them to be fully understood and appreciated, I was just curious about how he came upon his subjects and what his interactions with them were like.

The Best of Family Portrait Photography: Professional Techniques and Images
$39.95
"The Best of FAMILY PORTRAIT PHOTOGRAPHY, PROFESSIONAL TECHNIQUES AND IMAGES", by Bill Hurter is sort of an OK book. It simply designed to give an insight into portrait photography for groups of people. There are several things that would have made this book into a great must-have book that is dog-eared for photographers to recreate that same shot. It lacks ton's and tons of photo's. Quite a number of photo's are dated.

This book is intended for film and digital photographers. This is the first mistake? Why? You are an idiot to be shooting film in a digital world. A CANON 5D can regularly hold as many as hundred's of photo's before a single card has to be exchanged. Who wants to spend hundreds of dollars on film? The most obvious answer of all is how did my picture come out? Well, with a digital camera you can look on the back of the LCD screen and see! D'oh! Film camera's use a 35mm full-frame format lens selection that is different from a full-frame digital sensor camera. Many digital camera's today come with what is called a 1.6X crop factor sensor. We need to know how that is going to affect our selection of lens.

Bill goes on to talk about AF technology. If you did not know that AF technology is great these days where have you been? I mean seriously a major hello here! Image stability is talked about here. Let's cut to the chase and talk about posing families, please! There is much discussion about film choice. OK we have already established that no one seriously uses film anymore right? But, what if you do still use film? Well your local library and college(s) have books that date back fifty years. It's all there.

Focal length is talked about as well. Please give me details concerning digital only, please! Digital ISO settings again same thing as on a film camera. Here we dive into RAW vs. JPEG. Please Bill, Please! If you are still shooting in JPEG why in earth are you buying this book? Reformat your cards? Why would that be important? White Balance? Hey I like crazy colorz that screw up everything! Bill goes on to talk about exp-disc's. Let me say one thing about expo-disc's. In a word expo-disc's are great!

Expo-disc's are great because all you have to do is hit your white-balance button and hit custom and shoot. The great thing is all you have to do is purchase an expo-disc for all of your portrait/wedding lens. Then every time you walk into a different room, use a different lens or the lighting changes just use your expo-disc's?

Here's a better idea than blowing $500+ on expo-disc's. Just buy a lally cap and set your white balance two-three times a day and presto you are done baby. How much does a lally cap cost? Thirty measly buckaroo's. Lally caps can be purchased by visiting amazon.com or [...].

Posing, ah the good stuff! Bill advertises setting one persons head at a different height than the rest to offer an interesting perspective difference. I had/have never thought to do this. Men have no idea where to place their hands.The placement of hands could have had it's own chapter. In order to get a 4 star rating from me, you'd need to. They want to look macho and joe-cool. And hey so do I. Don't take my pose unless I am doing something cool with my hands. Here's a classic tip, have the man who is being posed stick his left hand inside of the pocket of his pants, with the thumb sticking out. It's always a winner!

Pictures of what to do with feet especially should have been included. I would have thought this would have been one of the most important considerations. The S-shaped composition form along with L and Z are talked about but no examples? Man what is this all about? A picture is worth 10,000 words here.

There is several chapters on children. This is a book on photographing group portraits! Having said this the advice given on shooting children is absolutely great. I have had so much fun shooting my niece. The book then dives into the great stuff of photographing mom, dad, the kids, and their furry friends. Now this is what I bought the book for.

Now as for lighting the book goes on to say that "some photographers use a bare-bulb flash. Please, come on Bill photographers don't use bare-bulb flash units. Lumedyne strobes are the same as using a soft-box or a umbrella. Who on earth calls and alien bee's a lumedyne strobe? Then Bill goes on to talk about TTL flash, now you are talking to us Bill, thanks.

The book finishes up with studio lighting. Please pay attention to the section on window lighting. It is really great stuff. This concludes my review of this book. I hope it is informative and easy to read.

All That Matters
$15.98
I am mostly a Heavy Metal listener. But, I do enjoy great R&B. I just recently purchased Portraits two releases. Just like Zhane, their two releases are well done. Yes, at the time there was a plethora of R&B groups out like H-Town, Shai, Silk, etc. But, Portrait (in my sole opinion), stand out with their own sound. There is some Take 6 influence present, but their sound is their own. The opening track is smooth and moves on to track 2 which has a cathcy bass that cannot be ignored. The rest of the cd just flows and keeps getting better. I think the music world needs to rediscover this R&B sound. I am weary of TPayne, Lil Wayne. So many artists today aren't singing and exhibiting their vocal abilities, rather they just scream or there is too much going on vocally with "feat. so and so," and muscially, just lacking any creativity. The songs today in the so called R&B world just cares about a catchy phrase "whoop there it is" or something to that effect, and the folks eat it up. Sad, sad, sad. Buy this one as well as the first release, and you will hear great harmonies vocally and lyrics that say something meaningful about loving your lady. You cannot get romantic with a TPayne song or Lil Wayne song, but you will with a Portrait song. Again, this is only my opinion. Portrait is in the style of After 7, another great group. Where are these guys?

Portrait
$11.98
Portrait proved to the world that four brothers from total different musical backgrounds could put out such diverse music. Real heartfelt music. Every track on this album really rocks. They made it with Here We Go Again! Most of the album is catered to the younger audience, but they have something for the more mature minded. Their ballads are so sensual and refreshing. My fave is On And On! They hit on the head with it.

Each and every one of them can sing their ass off. I would say that Eric and Phillip are my fave singers. Eric is the funky one while Phillip is the sensual one.

If U want a funky good ole time, get this! They are so underrated and also talented.