Turn everyday photos into stunning works of art, with this essential guide to photography
Featuring gorgeous phographs takn by the members the photography industry’s largest social network of female photographers, Clickin Moms, this accessible and gift-worthy guide provides both the inspiration and skills every photographer needs to capture life's beautiful moments as frameable pieces of art—from breakfasts to birthday parties and first steps to first days of school.
With big, bold images paired with short, easy-to-follow tips progressing from elementary to advanced, this book is perfect for amateurs and professionals alike, covering equipment, composition, posing, low light, natural light, black and white, still life, and lifestyle photography. Assignments for experimenting with lighting and shooting locations round out the chapters, and advice based on photographs from over 100 contributors include these priceless suggestions:
• Channel the old masters—painters such as Rembrandt and DaVinci are great inspiration
• Anticipate emotion—watch for laughter and surprise
• Embrace harsh lighting, backlighting, dappled sunlight and shade and use them to your advantage
• Emphasize texture and seek out patterns—repetition can be striking and bold
• Shoot from unexpected angles—sometimes the best shot is from below, behind, or above
Clickin Moms is contributing 100 percent of the royalties from Capture the Moment to the Ronald McDonald House, which provides accommodation for the families of seriously ill or injured children near the facility where a child is hospitalized.
Initial thoughts: The overall organisation was great as each section focussed on a particular theme, such a composition, light, darkness (low-light photography), black & white, etc. Under each section there was a collection of photos demonstrating each and a option accompanying each photo providing tips. Oddly, some captions and photos didn't exactly match, so the selected photo became more of a showcase piece for the photographer rather than a demonstration for the tip. While some photos were very strong, showing great skill, others were somewhat lacklustre, thus dragging down the overall impact of the book.
For a beginning photographer, Capturing the Moment is a good discovery tool of approaches to photography. Each chapter ended with prompts to challenge photographers. This showed that a lot of thought went into putting together this book. However, for someone seeking to improve their photography, this book is nothing more than a quick source of ideas to play around with. Few photos left a lasting impact on me but at least there were a couple that did spark my imagination.
