Dramatic Portrait: The Art of Crafting Light and Shadow

This is a fantastic book. Really nicely written, with lots of wit and detail. Having purchased lots of 'how to light' type books over the years, this is far and away the best of the bunch. The pictures and diagrams are clear and concise and Chris shows you the effects of different modifiers from different distances as well as going over some slightly more advanced subjects like art history and the inverse square law. I initially thought that these subjects (that I know a fair amount about already) would be a bit boring, but the way Chris writes is very readable and easy going. It's more like he's having a chat and explaining it to you, rather than a purely academic approach with nothing but f/stops and equations. As a time-served professional photographer who wanted a bit more knowledge about the subject of lighting dramatically I've found this book invaluable. If you are a beginner then I strongly recommend you pick this up as it will teach you an awful lot about how to light a subject or scene without being too heavy going. I've included a couple of examples of the work I did the second I'd finished reading it.

Nice book, very informative. Chris Knight is an excellent photographer, a master of the craft. It starts off looking at the paintings of some of the great masters from a lighting, composition and posing perspective. This he then replicates. Quite a technical book leading you from some of the basics to quite advanced techniques. Quite a lot of theory too. It might be a bit technical for a novice, but it is certainly something you could grow into...

A book that actually tells you something and bothers to impart understanding not just method. This is not a general lighting book, but it is actually fine as a first lighting book. It is focussing on dramatic, but it does eplain well different light sources, shapers and how light works at different distances. One interesting approach is to show a lighting setup with just each individual light on so you can see the separate contributions. I have found this book a good source for practicing in the studio, setting up the examples and picking out the main characteristics and "gotchas". Lighting can seem a little involved at first, but the author spends a lot of time on single light set-ups showing how these develop shape and drama. Reminding that the lighting can be changed by simply moving the model or the camera is incredibly useful.

Good potted history of portrait art. Links made between art masters and the ‘dramatic’ portraits created with a camera. Clear, precise description of effects created by changing position of the light source. If Rembrandt lit photographic portraits are your ‘thing’ then this book will show you how. Author has an amusing turn of phrase to raise interest during the academic aspects of art history. A good book that goes beyond the ‘this is how to do it’ level.

This was bought as a gift for my son. He has found it to not only useful for photography tips but also a good read. It covers a little of the history of art and photography too. The author has a sense of humour which makes his style of writing easy to read and entertaining too.

As a very amateur photographer I was very happy with the content. Easy to read. Depth and detail without being jargon laden. I had previously seen his lecture on You Tube with the same title and the two marry up very well. Excellent visual content. I’m happy to recommend it.

I have so many books on photography some are better than others, this book is the only book I have read that decicTes a entire chapter to visual art history from cave dwellings to the modern day it makes you look at photography in a way that no other book has ever done so I highly recommend this book to anyone looking for a educational and great book

Good book, well written, very informative, although the information in the book is useful. In the printed version I found the physical read of the book awkward, as the print is rather small and in a dark brown colour on a semi gloss paper. so with the certain light, reflections of the light on the semi gloss paper made for awkward reading. So only 4 stars I also brought the kindle version, no problem with reading that at all

Such a remarkable book! Useful; one learns a lot from reading it. If you're keen on getting into studio portrait, this a must!

El libro te explica desde los inicios de los retratos en pintura y escultura. Además te explica cómo tomar mejores retratos con la ayuda de la iluminación adecuada. Te explica cómo hacer buenas fotos con lo que tengas y puedas adquirir, te explica las opciones que hay en el mercado. Además te explica la importancia de la post producción (recomendable tener nociones de edición de imágenes en Lightroom y Photoshop para la última sección).

An excellent lighting tutorial by a great teacher. I love that it is backed up by photographic illustrations of every type of lighting set up.

The photography portion of this book is ok (which is the majority of it), but the initial History discussion is just atrocious. I'm a History teacher and I was so offended by how many wrong information this book contained in the very first 10 pages that I just decided to skip the entire first chapter. If you want to have a good introduction in history of art, go to Gombrich's work and do not read a single line of this book's first chapter.

Chris Knight is a true master of the dramatic portrait and this book summarizes his process. Great resource to have and refer to.