Comments on: Photo Idea Index – People

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Wed, 18 Jan 2012 10:09:39 +0000

Good book, just not up to the others in his series., August 5, 2011

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This review is from: Photo Idea Index - People: Ideas and Inspiration for Creating Professional-Quality Images Using Standard Digital Equipment (Paperback)

I first read photo_idea_index, then photo_idea_index_things by the same author. They were better and gave me more creative ideas than this one. The photographic samples throughout the book in this book were also not up to the same quality as the others. Jim Kruase is a great author. This book just wasn't up to the others.

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By: G.K.

G.K. — Wed, 18 Jan 2012 09:26:15 +0000

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

My FAVORITE!, February 8, 2011

G.K. -

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This review is from: Photo Idea Index - People: Ideas and Inspiration for Creating Professional-Quality Images Using Standard Digital Equipment (Paperback)

An amazing book. Seriously. I rarely write reviews, but this book has me really enthused and I felt obliged to post something (and forgive me if this review is a little long). Photo Idea Index: People is a totally different animal compared to other books about digital photography (and I own an embarrassingly large collection of books on the subject). The author went out and shot about five hundred photographs just for this book. All kinds of different photos using just three different people as subjects. And, according to the book's intro, he presents each one of these photos in hopes of inspiring related picture-taking ideas in the reader's mind and to demonstrate how much can be done with how little. The book covers a lot of ground through topics such as: how to make the most of a pocket camera and natural light, trying out different lenses on a digital SLR, experimental shooting techniques (the author even takes his camera underwater with one model), getting your model to relax, act up or even to put on some costume-types-of-things, and also computer-related subjects such as converting images to amazing black-and-white images and going for contemporary fine-art or commercial looks. So, are these 500 photos any good and do they give the reader ideas? Yes and YES. Believe me, practically every one of the book's photos grabbed my eye, begged for a long look and got me excited about trying out something similar with my own camera. The book is about 90% photos and 10% text (the photos are mostly displayed without text, and the last couple pages of each chapter contain captions for all the images cover details about how the photos were shot, what was done on the computer, and maybe some behind-the-scenes stories). I honestly have no complaints about this book except that I had to wear my reading glasses to read the slightly small text. Photo Idea Index: People radiates enthusiasm and a "can do" mentality. I feel very fortunate to have found it. Also, this book has two companion volumes (one about Places and one about Things) that I have ordered but not yet seen. If they are anything like this one, then I'm going to be one happy reader/photographer.

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By: H. Hosny

H. Hosny — Wed, 18 Jan 2012 08:52:30 +0000

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

If you want your photos to have personality and uniqueness, this book is priceless!, August 22, 2010

H. Hosny (Roanoke, Virginia) -

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This review is from: Photo Idea Index - People: Ideas and Inspiration for Creating Professional-Quality Images Using Standard Digital Equipment (Paperback)

Every one of us is unique; but not every one of us knows how to express uniqueness in our photos. If you look at the photos of 100 people, you'd be hard pressed to see any difference in the photos of 95 photographers. But the other five will enchant you.

This is a book about how to be within that five percent. Jim Krause brings you as close as any author will bring you to being innovative, to being daring, and to making your photos stand out against other people's photos. You get hundreds and hundreds of images as well as very copious explanatory text to walk you through exactly what avenues of creativity there are for situations in which you'd otherwise be stumped for ideas.

Your point of view, your technique, and your post processing of images will all be bolstered a *whole* lot by this book.

Another really unique thing about this book (as well as Krause's other books in this series) is that he doesn't have the annoying habit many authors have of sharing part of the secrets to success while keeping the other part to himself. One senses that Krause is telling you everything he knows. It's a form of honesty that most people will really appreciate.

People who already own Krause's older titles like _Photo Idea Index_ will already have a leg up in knowing that Krause believes in learning to see any given subject not in one, but in many, different ways. I almost lost my mind when I first looked at Photo Indea Index and saw the exercise in which Krause managed to show around 150 different points of view in the photography of a fork. A simple fork! Anyone who does that has bone-crushingly open vision. The same, more or less, applies in this book. A handful of people subjects are photographed in so many incredibly interesting ways that you can't help but to be impressed.

I actually went ahead and bought all three books in the series and I consider them to be endless layers of inspiration. It's impossible to overstate how much they are helping me to think outside the box.

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