Direction & Quality of Light: Your Key to Better Portrait Photography Anywhere

As a pro photographer, workshop leader, educator, author and all around lighting geek I consume photography lighting books the way other people eat breakfast cereal. Therefore I'm a pretty tough customer when it comes to content. I hold the bar very high and expect details, details, and more details. I look for thorough, clear explanations, behind the scenes images, diagrams, the how's, the why's, and most important - compelling images that leave me wishing I'd created them.

Neil Van Niekerk's book delivers on all counts! "Direction & Quality of Light: Your Key to Better Portrait Photography Anywhere" is filled with page after page of inspiring images and detailed information. Neil delves not only into how images were created technically but the thought process and reasons behind his choices. The book builds on a solid foundation of important lighting theory and technique and moves quickly into a plethora of real world applications.

This is a book by a working professional photographer for other aspiring and working photographers. No fluff, no BS, only solid, practical, real world information; just the kind of essential skills readers need in today's competitive marketplace. For these reasons I give Neil Van Niekerk's "Direction & Quality of Light" two big thumbs up and recommend it without reservation.

Disclaimers:
1) I read a draft manuscript of this book and provided some proofreading assistance. I received a finished copy, but I was under no obligation to write a review.
2) I do read the author's blog semi-regularly, and I have attended his workshops.

Review:
In some ways, I think people learning about photography should read this book first before the author's other earlier books, primarily because this book spends some time describing the thought process the author uses to determine how he would light a given scene. This thought process is important regardless of the lighting tools you have.

Is the ambient light adequate or good?
If the ambient light is insufficient or bad, can I do something to change it without adding artificial lighting?
If I need artificial lighting, how can I use my artificial lighting?
Is the light source falling on my subject in a pleasing way?

The first chapters go through the author's thought process on how he analyzes his lighting needs and later chapters tackle this topic in these areas.
a) Ambient light only
b) Single flash unit with and without a softbox (The 'revelation' that once you bounce flash off a surface, that becomes the 'softbox' is something beginners miss initially.)
c) Powerful studio light unit or multiple flash units, both with and without softboxes
d) Video light / Videographer light

The book is easy to read and well-written. The passages are not long-winded nor are they filled with jargon. The content is to the point, without any joking around that some other authors use. The writing is "just right" as if you were watching a presentation done by the author.

The only minor nitpick I have is with the Guide Number tutorial near the end of the book. The guide number can be used to calculate correct manual flash exposure, but it is a little esoteric for me. It definitely works, but it's probably not the first thing I would do. The shortcut at the end of that section is actually more practical, and I think easier to grasp for more people. It might have been better just to leave the guide number discussion out.

One reviewer commented that the book didn't offer anything new, and the content can be found on his blog. Being a reader of the author's blog, that reviewer is correct, but it needs qualification. Each chapter's content is derived from several of the author's blog entries. The author wrote content for his blog at different points in time. While the author sometimes refers to older blog articles in more recent blog entries, the older entries are generally *not* updated. In addition, the blog entries are numerous; you can search the author's blog or use the site navigation, but you may not find what you seek. Lastly, even if the author refers to his past articles, the author doesn't always connect the pieces into a new cohesive whole.

In my opinion, this book is better than his blog in this particular application. The book contains definitive, connected -- all the related, but separate blog entries are finally rewritten as one --, and updated content (including a few new photos) from his blog, so that a reader can find the most important topics the author wants to impart. Of course, the book's contents may become "outdated," but the book is currently handier to read the "good stuff" than searching for it through the blog. Once someone reads this book, it should be easier to follow the author's blog or find other related blog content.

Another reviewer criticized that the photos used in the book require professional-grade equipment that no average reader can hope to achieve. Unfortunately, certain situations do require good equipment to get a usable exposure, but for other scenarios (i.e. general vacation photos, daylight scenes, typical indoors of a house), people with modest equipment can still apply the lighting thought process in the book to improve photos that they currently take. (i.e. if you take vacation photos of the family, don't make them face the sun directly.)

Great book, lots of good information and well packaged up for those who prefer to read a physical book then to go through Neil's website, where a lot of the information already is.

My only real complaint about this book is the "build quality" is fairly bad. It feels like a lower quality binding job, with the pages not *quite* fitting together right. However there's no issue with the spine or quality of paper.

Definite recommend if you're an amateur or mid-level shooter interested in getting more information about making your portraits pop, and learning to see different lighting options all around you, from natural light only to one flash to multiple flashes. The focus is not much on gear, and much more on technique and seeing light. Highly recommended.

Just finished this book - one of the most helpful I've read in a while. I am relatively new to using flash and have been reading a number of books on the subject as well as browsing through sites on the web. The explanations and examples in this book finally presented things in such a way that I feel as though I had a light bulb moment - actually more than one. The book is more about technique than equipment but that is just the type of information I need at this point. Yes, some of the photos and information have been presented on Neil's website but what I found particularly helpful was having them laid out in book form, in logical progression. I really enjoy the website but I've often felt that I needed the information as I found it in this book. What may wind up being the most important thing, thanks to Neil, is that I find myself looking at and studying the effect and quality of light with nearly rapt attention as I go through my day.

I buy a lot of photography books, some I learn from, some I don't. Unfortunately a lot of what I learn from a large portion of the books is that I wasted my money. This is NOT one of those books.

The book is well-organized, well-written and the choice of photos to illustrate the author's points is almost perfect. The book does not oversimplify nor does it brush over details. I now use the book as a reference when considering lighting setups or just as a periodic refresher concerning what to consider when lighting a portrait.

If you are at all interested in learning how to light your images--even if its only using ambient light and a speedlight--to transform a snapshot into a professional image that "pops", this is a book for you.

I already had Neil's first two books and learned much from each of them. This book is sort of a re-cap. . .but it added a greater understanding of what we're really trying to achieve. I got a lot out of it--so much, in fact, that I also watched his two video courses on Craftsy. Neil has a better way of explaining than I've seen anywhere else, and his teaching methods are far more effective. I've never gotten much out of discussion on butterfly lighting--what does work for me is seeing what a portrait looks like without flash, and then seeing how a little fill can make a difference. Great examples, clear and cogent writing. I like books and video tutorials, and I've read and watched more than a few. I still got more out of this book than from any other writer, and added to what I'd already learned from Neil. Can you tell I liked it? And that I highly recommend it? Good. Click "Add to Cart". You won't regret it.

Excellent book on lighting, both flash and natural. Easy to read and understand instruction and examples.

Would get 5 stars except for the inappropriate images.

This small book (160 pages) deals with lighting for the portrait in all its aspects.
No posing techniques here, the book title is pretty accurate - It is all about light: available light vs. flash light, light modifiers, light measurement, indoor vs. outdoor light, on camera vs. off camera flash.

No grand unifying theory of what makes a good picture here (phew!) but great pictures with how and why they were lit the way they were. There are regularly pull-back shots showing the setup. The first two chapters even have a few photos labeled "BAD!" and why, something I would like to see more as one learns more from mistakes than from success and it is less painful to learn from other people's mistakes, even when they are voluntary to make a point.

What's great with this book is that it deals with the technical aspects without making them painful. The downside of course is that the reader is supposed to be at least somewhat knowledgeable in photography - this is not a book for the complete beginner.

In a way I find it is quite complementary with the [[ASIN:1584281251 Master Lighting Guide for Portrait Photographers]] that details all the variants of all the poses and lighting diagrams. The master lighting guide is essentially studio while the direction and quality of light deals with on-location including some wedding or engagement pictures but all in all they go well together.

What does not hurt, it is easy and friendly to read and it makes a decent coffee table book.
To me a solid four-stars-and-a-half; two of his earlier books are in my Amazon shopping cart.

I hope this helps. Don't hesitate to ask me questions in comments.

Just finished Neil's latest book and found it to be excellent, as were his first two books. One of the things I particularly liked about all his books is that the referenced images are generally on the same or adjacent open page. Occasionally, you have to flip one page. Makes for very easy reading . And he covers many situations such as "Available light with rim lighting", "Manual or TTL", "Separation with backlighting", etc. After a second reading this book will become a reference book just to keep his ideas fresh in my mind. The author is not "long winded" with lots of superfluous words filling the page. He gets to the point using examples (sometimes images which have been on his website -- but so what? They illustrate his lesson perfectly.)
In my collection of over a dozen books, Neil's three are my favorite "go to" references when I want to reinforce some idea. I would recommend reading the first two books before this one if you are a beginner. OK to start with "Direction and Quality of Light" if you are advanced.

I agree with others who chose not to "5-star" this book. It is a good book for beginners who have no experience with lighting, and I found it well thought out and with easy-to-understand explanations. But even for beginners, I thought the book was sorely missing diagrams of where the lights were placed for each shot. Photographers are by definition "visual" learners, and this seems to be a glaring omission. For a $30 MSRP book, on a subject as important as photography, I think that would have been enough to bump it up at least to a 4 star. I will not be holding on to this book for my library.