Hot Shoe Diaries

The Hot Shoe Diaries
Big Light from Small Flashes: Creative Applications of Small Flashes.

By Joe McNally
Edition is “New Riders - Voices That Matter” series and was bought from Amazon.

If you were looking for the definitive answer to your lighting queries, bypass this book.

If you are looking for an anecdotal brain dump of a large number of shoots that involved colour, light, locations, themes and a photographers attempt to capture some of that as best he can, then you are in the right place.

Joe McNally is up-front about his intention in this book - “This is not a book of certainties. It is not a manual. It is, as the title states, a diary” - and as such the most important bit in the book is the first chapter entitled “This Is Not the Manual”.
In it Joe McNally explains just what is being offered, what you can expect to find in each “diary page”, and more importantly, what isn’t there so that your expectations are shaped towards what the book offers - and not what you may have thought it offers.

So, what have I gained from reading this book?
I think, apart from looking at things more in terms of light, it is the feeling that there is a shot there no matter what the lighting conditions. Flat sky, flat light? Look at what drew you to photograph the scene in first place, then use the camera and flash together to accentuate what you feel is important in the scene - and if you don’t feel anything is important in the scene, then why are you photographing it? I will approach the “photo opportunities” I receive now with a different mind set - a mind set that looks at the light and the colour much more than I used to - and hopefully, with practice, I will come away with more pleasing (to me, anyway) photographs.

The writing style of Joe McNally is casual, fast paced, emphatic and enjoyable. He drew me in for the ride and more than once I was reading in bed and found myself still reading long after the light should have gone off.

The verdict?
A thoroughly enjoyable read which will alter the way you approach a photo shoot by altering the way you think about light.
Trust me, it’s a keeper.

Project 12 - Overview

I read a lot. Sometimes it is computer technical books, sometimes it is a novel, sometimes a photography how-to.

I have opinions about what I read.

Each month I will have an opinion on a photography book, and if I have the time, between those will be reviews of other books I have read.

Again, this is a commitment, so hopefully I can keep up with it - and learn something along the way.