Beyond Portraiture: Creative People Photography [Paperback]

Many years ago I was a budding photographer with no formal training, never really interested in photographing people. Yet people were always getting in the way of most of my shots. Many years later, I discovered that people can add interest to my images by adding scale, a sense of place, or adding to the image's story. Today I enjoy sports photography and I look for ways to include people when composing an image. As a serious hobby photographer with no formal training, this book helped me get more creative when photographing people.

Beyond Portraiture is a straight forward book explaining the many aspects of creative people photography. The book is broken down into five main sections. UNDERSTANDING PEOPLE explains a bit of psychology, approaching people, and how to get people to agree to be photographed. WORKING WITH PEOPLE discusses the types of people you should "cast" for your intended images, and how to maintain a comfortable and respectful relationship of varying types of people you may want to photograph. LIGHT details differing types of light and how they affect your images. COMPOSING POWERFUL PORTRAITS offers basic composition rules, backgrounds, movement, camera settings and lens options. PHOTO-EDITING TECHNIQUES is a series of lessons in Photoshop to help perfect your images.

It is assumed the reader already has a solid grasp on exposure. If this is not the case, read Brian Peterson's Understanding Exposure prior to reading this book. There are short sections discussing shutter speed and aperture, but they are not in-depth enough to form the solid foundation of exposure settings every serious photographer should have. Brian refers to these settings, as he should, in most of the topics.

If you shoot in fully automatic mode, you will get something out of this book, but may lack the ability to duplicate the results except by luck. Chances are a camera in fully automatic mode will determine a correct exposure; however the camera can be fooled into setting an incorrect exposure. Plus there is more than one "correct exposure" setting for a scene, but which setting creatively results in the image you want?

While the technical details that I have read in this book are commonly known among serious hobbyist, it is Brian Peterson's perspective and experiences that make this book worth reading. His simple writing style is conducive to learning and interesting, opening my eyes to even more possibilities. Even though I look for ways to include people in my pictures, this book will take me to the next level.

If you have mastered the subject, this book is not for you. However, if you are a beginner with an aversion to photographing people, or are not satisfied with your portraits and candid shots get this easy to understand book. If you have a general understanding but have room for improvement, this book will help fill in the missing pieces.

PROS
Straight forward easy to understand book
Full of valuable information
Includes mention of film and digital cameras where applicable.
Full of inspiring images

CONS
With the discussion of the importance of model releases, a template should have been included.

First off, let me advise Bryan Peterson fans that "Beyond Portraiture" is not a totally new book, but a revision of his 1993 book "People in Focus" with some digital photos, hints and a Photoshop chapter added. A lot of the text is word-for-word from "People in Focus", complete with gramatical errors and typos that have not been changed. Many of the pictures are the same. So, if you already own "People in Focus" and you're shooting film, or you are into digital but already have a good knowledge of your photo editing system, you may be greatly disappointed to find you are reading a lot of he same text and seeing a lot of the same pictures. In fact, I think many of his photos in the earlier book are better than a lot of those he's replaced them with.

That said, I'd highly recommend this book to people who are interested in improving their people photography outside the studio. The strong point to this book - as it was in "People in Focus" - remains the section on how to approach people at home and abroard and get them to let you take their photograph; and in overcoming one's own shyness about interacting with potential photo subjects. And, Peterson's writing is always entertaining.

Bryan Peterson's best books are the ones that allow photographers (beginning and professional) to confront their fears in becoming better photographers. This is, hands down, one of his best. A great distillation of his years of experience as a top working photographer, teacher, instructor and writer.

If his seminal book 'Understanding Exposure' clearly and conscisely breaks down the process of setting exposure in a non-theoretical way, 'Beyond Portraiture' breaks down the process of dealing with PEOPLE in real and practical terms. From showing how to ask people to take their pictures, to the psychology of putting people at ease, co-operating with you, getting them to sign model releases, working with models etc etc, this book defuses the fears keeping us from taking more pictures of people.

Once he helps you to overcome those fears that prevent us from taking the pictures we really want to take, he then tells you how to *enjoy* the process of going out and taking people's pictures because you CAN.
Also included are sections on optimising your images, stock photography and travel photography, also well worth the price of the book.

Unlike most, he does not dwell on the minutae of equipment and technique, even though he discusses these things also, which is welcome.

He is the epitome of a good teacher. He allows you to discover what is in you and brings you to understanding. And by allowing you to face what is stopping you from taking the pictures you want, he helps you to become the photographer you want to be.

After 'Understanding Exposure' (which should be read before going through this book), 'Beyond Portraiture: Creative People Photography' is probably one of the best photography books ever written.

Highly recomended.

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