New Book Helps You Improve Your Photography

Like most people today we're a hack photographer. Not by choice it just turned out that way.

Yes we have burned through a number of cameras and now own two digital cameras, one a super cool DSLR (digital single lens reflex) beauty that captures brilliant images. Problem is they always lack a certain punch. They don't quite tell the story we thought we were going to get. They were just…OK.

On the other hand our daughter and daughter-in-law shoot beautiful stuff. Our daughter-in-law seems to have that innate ability to make even the simplest of subject almost breathe. Translation – a work of art.

After our last family vacation and looking at their photos everyone wanted copies of and mine that even our parrot turned away from we decided it was time to do something about the problem because even a newer, better, more gadget-filled, more expensive camera wasn't going to do the trick.

Derek, the Shoot to Thrill author, is a photojournalist turned writer/editor turned publisher we've known for a long time and who always seems to have eye-catching photos to illustrate his articles. We figured the hints and ideas that he gave to and shared with professional photographers might be a little over our head but we also thought the book might help us skip over all of the dumb things so we could focus on what it required to get good photos folks would enjoy and that we could display in the digital photo frames we had around the office and home.

Derek's writing and guidance is a lot like the book's cover – no nonsense, hard-learned logical assistance that helps you safely work your way through the dark back streets of digital photography. Unfortunately this isn't just an evening or two reading book. We read a chapter (with the camera equipment close at hand) then put down the book and worked on the new-found knowledge to see if we could produce the results Derek talked about and showed (yes the book is loaded with photos).

The book however is easy to read, easy to digest and easy to remember. It's sometimes funny that just a few ideas, thoughts, recommendations can give you what photographers love to call a visual eye. We don’t have it yet but Derek's advice did assist us in bringing some spirit and even excitement into the content we captured.

We found it very helpful and powerful when he brought in some of the work he had done as a UPI photographer and showed the photos of history-making events he was able to capture with his own camera(s). Then he explained how he captured that one image everyone wanted. You know the photo that says everything the person is saying, thinking, feeling without any words.

Shoot to Thrill gives you a full range of hints and ideas on how you can use the new digital camera to capture the spirit, the excitement, the fun, the story of the moment.

Freely sharing his experience, Derek helps you by sharing some of the creative techniques he has developed and refined over the years to use film noir lighting, ring flash that fashion photographers use perhaps way too much and how to play around with your portrait lighting so you can capture family pictures you want to have printed for everyone to see.

Since our daughter-in-law has "that eye" and shoots some killer still life photos we also asked for her to read it to give us a "second opinion." Since she takes her hobby much more seriously than we do she obviously zipped through the 264 pages much more quickly than we did.

Then she proceeded to tell and show us how she was able to immediately put into practice the insider hints (our words) and ideas she had always wondered how she could do. Here's a lady who has taken more than 30,000 photos all over and she said she picked up more than a dozen ideas she was going to be able to use from now on.

Our daughter? Well she devotes less time to her hobby but she has also been good. When she finished the book she was suddenly able to see great subjects, different camera angles, more intimate/intricate lighting and setting changes she could make to really capture beautiful and exciting moments.

As for our content all we can say is we're more confident, we're better, we're capturing more interesting subject, we're having fun and hey the parrot will now look at the photos we shot.

The good thing about today's new digital cameras is not only are they very affordable and very easy to use and you can take a bunch of shots just hoping you capture one moment, one image that you know is the money shot.

The bad thing about today's digital cameras is that anyone can use them, take the pictures and post/show them with unjustified pride. Take a look at Flickr and all of the other photo, content sites and you'll see there are thousands of folks who need a lot of help.

Maybe some will pick up their own copy of Shoot to Thrill and save all of us from having to look at really ugly stuff. If they don't do it on their own just think that the holidays are coming so you can give them a gift that will help them, help you say their content really looks good (and mean it) and you'll be protecting the visual environment.

Just for the heck of it, pick up a copy for yourself because well we've seen you use the digital camera and what you're saving to show everyone is a crime. Shoot to Thrill will get you out of jail, get you out of the family dog house and give you photography hobby a new lease on life!

Shoot to Thrill: A Hard-Boiled Guide to Digital Photography – Derek Pell, Que Publications, 800 East 96th Street, Indianapolis, Indiana 46240; www.informit.com/que; $24.99 (Amazon - $17.99) 264 pages, September 2009