The Complete Guide to Light

by Mark Cleghorn

Master the light and you master the photograph—that's the key idea in this hands-on guide to understanding and using lighting. Internationally known photographer Mark Cleghorn uses jargon-free language to explain exactly how light works—and how it can be manipulated—in the photographer's medium. Cleghorn covers such subjects as using natural and ambient light, maximizing the benefits of an on-camera flash, and applying innovative Photoshop techniques. To make things even easier, he provides photos and graphics of various lighting setups that demonstrate how the placement of equipment alters the final result. 

Genres: Photography, Nonfiction

175 pages, Paperback

First published April 7, 2009

Reviews

[Ty · Rating 1 out of 5]

This is a comprehensive book on what not to do. There's even an image on the cover that is over exposed. The majority of the examples in this book are there to show errors. It's as if a critique published this book simply to point out how terrible these images are. which would actually be useful if not for the bad advice. "by deliberately setting the flash to over expose by one stop, a pleasing bleached skin effect was achieved."

[Sarah Sammis · Rating 2 out of 5]

For the more experimentally minded, look to the recipes in this book as a starting point. They aren't the only way to photograph. You can over or under expose things for artistic reasons. You can shoot to a different temperature than the environment you're shooting in. You can find your own way of "breaking the rules" to make your own rules and your own style. Doing, that, though, isn't in this book.

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[Carrie · Rating 4 out of 5]

I learned quite a few tips I needed to know to improve the way I use lighting. But it is a bit too jampacked with information that I started to get a bit confused. I think it would have been better if I had read this book after being more experienced as a photographer. I will probably read it again in a year or two when I am more ready.

[Kevin Connery · Rating 2 out of 5]

It had some good points, but contained enough substantive misstatements that I couldn't recommend it to someone who would need a book on lighting.