Book Recommendation: The Record of Light (Michael Freeman)

The book that I bring you today, at the request and suggestion of readers, is the record of light, by Michael Freeman. The Three Kings were absolutely right when they left it at my house a couple of Christmases ago.

Before telling you about it, I would like to recommend our mega guide on lighting in photography in which you will find all the tips and tricks compiled to master the light in your images.

the soul of photography

the soul of photography is the subtitle of the book. Photography is light beyond the technical part and this publication is responsible for demonstrating it on each page.

The author has divided this work into three parts: expect, to pursue Y help.

Expect It is the part that analyzes the different types of light that you can find. Each one is explained in depth about the opportunities it offers to the photographer. From the magic hour through the backlight to the light of the sky.

In a second part, To pursue, delves into that fortuitous and unpredictable light, the one that is not expected and to which one must respond very differently and quickly in order to take advantage of the conditions and capture it at its best. Some of these lights are storm or fog lights.

In both cases it was a matter of simple perseverance without much expectation that things would work out. The sudden appearance of a clearing on the horizon is unusual, and the only way to catch it is to be there and be lucky. What you don’t see here is all the times it didn’t happen and the cloud cover remained solid.

Help It is a last part in which different resources are shown to manipulate light. Modifying, improving or controlling it are some of the purposes of this section, which covers everything from diffusers or filters to processing.

Details

• Pages: 256 .
• Soft cover
• First edition: 2014
• Dimensions: 25×25 cm approximately
• Price: €28.40

Ideal for…

… you, if you have been in this art for some time and need to delve deeper into the soul of photography, light. If you are looking to understand it, understand how it works, how you can take better advantage of the different times of the day or the different weather conditions; if you want to improve it, modify it or control it. You will also fall in love if your thing is travel photography.

Not the best option if you just landed and are still getting familiar with terms like white balance, exposure or light metering modes. If this is your case, it can be heavy and difficult to read. Of course, do not lose sight of it because when you have a little more knowledge and practice, you will surely love it. If this is your case, we recommend our Lightbook, designed for beginners and explained in a clear and simple way ;).

It is also not for you if you expect artificial lighting tricks, because except for a few mentions of artificial light, this book is fundamentally about natural light; or recipes to follow, it is more a book to understand light, to understand how it influences the image, how the scene changes, etc., not to teach techniques, shutter speeds or apertures…

About the Author

Born in England in 1945, Michael Freeman is a prestigious internationally recognized photographer and writer, who has more than twenty publications, specializing in travel photography, architecture and Asian art. He has worked for the magazine Smithsonian and to Time Life Books Y National Geographic.

The best

The example images and the diagrams that it includes make the understanding of the text much easier, in addition, its photographs are a delight and pure inspiration.

The size of the photos, not only the number of examples, but they are very large and you can appreciate the detail well.

The edition in general is quite good, except for what I am telling you now…

Worst

The font size. It’s a big enough book to have increased the font size a bit. Reading it in bed with insufficient light was almost torture, although some will say that small print and large photos are better than the other way around. I have to say that it’s a good thing that since I can’t see well, it’s from a distance and not up close… otherwise I wouldn’t have been able to write this review.

I’ve added a photo so you can get a more realistic idea of ​​the size (no, the pin hasn’t slipped in, it’s there with a clear intention ;P).

Other publications

You may be interested in these other publications of the author:

The photographer’s eyeyou can see the review here).

photographer’s mind

black and white photography

Conclusions

I will go straight to the point, it is an essential book for the difficult and wonderful art of understanding light in photography. Not suitable for beginners or for those who do not see well up close unless you have a magnifying glass and you like to use it 😉

And so far today’s review, I hope it has been useful to you. If so, I will greatly appreciate it if you share it on your favorite social network.

Reading makes us wiser, happy reading!