Outdoor portraiture offers photographers countless opportunities to create dramatic and beautiful photographs. In the guide, photographers will learn aspects of identifying and controlling natural light, finding the perfect setting, utilizing architecture, taking urban portraits, and capturing stunning nightscapes. Included are tips for professional photographers to build a better profit margin.

Customer Review: For Professionals looking to improve their location sessions! Not a "how-to" book though.

I can see how this book wouldn't be appreciated by non-professionals. So it just proves one book doesn't work for everyone. But if you are on the professional level, you will probably appreciate this book if you are looking to improve your location sessions or review the basics you've stopped thinking about.

I just finished reading through this book, and found the discussion of natural light to be pretty helpful for me. I enjoyed reading this book because it gave a lot of helpful pointers on location photography (and has many pictures for examples -- although I admit I wasn't a fan of some of his images). A lot of the topics in the book I am already familiar with, but re-reading them helped remind me that yes, you can hold sessions anytime during the day (or night, I suppose).

There are 2 chapters on the business side of photography (making a profit and marketing), which are mainly overviews reminding you that your business's sole function is to make a profit and that you need to have a planned strategy for your advertising and marketing techniques.

Customer Review: Already outdated, impractical, hardly worth it

The author lets you know right away how much he hates digital and loves film. So for those of us who shoot digital there is nothing in this book to help us exploit its powers and advantages over film. (Maybe it's because this book is copyright 2002 and digital "back then" wasn't nearly as good and as cost-effective as it is now.) He also brings a truckload of big equipment with him INCLUDING A GENERATOR to power it all, when he does an on-location shoot. For me, that would mean a truck and a crew and hours of set-up. Maybe if I can charge $1500 and spend all day doing one senior photo session, but otherwise a lot of his suggestions are impractical.
His photographs in the book are 100% female, teens-thru-30's. (I guess males and children don't have outdoor portraits taken.) What is worse, I really don't like much of the photos in the book! The lighting is so artificial and unnatural looking that I find it almost distracting in many of his images. Some almost look like they were shot against a green screen with the background dropped in later. (I know they weren't, but the lighting and the shadows don't match the background...so to me they're so contrived that they almost look fake.)
So many Amherst publications are packed with terrific images that I can't wait to try to imitate in my own work. I was so disappointed that I could find only 2 or 3 images in this entire book I'd even want to try to emulate.
The only saving grace is that these Amherst books are so inexpensive. For 20 bucks I found a few tips that I can use making it probably worth it. But great it ain't. Overall, I was very, very disappointed. Jeff needs to embrace digital, give up on film, get rid of that generator and make his outdoor workflow more practical and his images more natural looking. These are my recommendations for a 3rd edition.

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