People in Focus

Photographing people is seldom easy. From how many vacations have you returned with great shots of the sea, mountains, or monuments you saw but without any pictures of the local people - the street vendors, shopkeepers, and children who really made your trip memorable? Intuitively you know that, friend or foe, people are self-conscious in front of a camera, so you hesitate before shooting. This book offers Bryan Peterson's expertise on photographing all kinds of people, from unwilling subjects to smiling babies. A location photographer, he constantly searches for people to portray in an interesting way and knows how to alleviate their surprise and anxiety about being photographed. Peterson illustrates chapters on observing people, approaching your subject, creating a mood with light, composing powerful portraits, and people as symbols with an exciting portfolio of his professional work shot around the world. As in his two previous books, he demonstrates solutions to various technical problems - for example, exposure, composition, lens length, and lighting - with before and after photographs. A final section gives tips on selling your photographs as stock.
Most important, you will learn what psychological hurdles you need to overcome, internal as well as external, to make great pictures of anyone, anywhere.