The Hot Shoe Diaries: Big Light from Small Flashes (Voices That Matter)

The Hot Shoe Diaries: Big Light from Small Flashes (Voices That Matter)
By Joe McNally

Product Description
When it comes to photography, it’s all about the light.

After spending more than thirty years behind the lens—working for National Geographic, Time, Life, and Sports Illustrated—Joe McNally knows about light. He knows how to talk about it, shape it, color it, control it, and direct it. Most importantly, he knows how to create it...using small hot shoe flashes.

In The Hot Shoe Diaries, Joe brings you behind the scenes to candidly share his lighting solutions for a ton of great images. Using Nikon Speedlights, Joe lets you in on his uncensored thought process—often funny, sometimes serious, always fascinating—to demonstrate how he makes his pictures with these small flashes. Whether he’s photographing a gymnast on the Great Wall, an alligator in a swamp, or a fire truck careening through Times Square, Joe uses these flashes to create great light that makes his pictures sing.

About the Author
JOE McNALLY is an internationally acclaimed American photographer and longtime photojournalist. His most notable series is “Faces of Ground Zero—Portraits of the Heroes of September 11th,” a collection of giant Polaroid portraits. He also photographed “The Future of Flying,” the first all-digital story for National Geographic. His award-winning work has appeared in numerous magazines and, in 2008, Joe wrote the critically acclaimed and bestselling book The Moment It Clicks.



Customer Reviews

Wish I bought it sooner - from a canon guy
Short and sweet - wish I bought this earlier. The author goes into good detail about shoots and why he does things - you need to know about your camera, but it is written in conversation language and very easy to follow. As everyone else states, he does talk Nikon up quite a bit, but understanding your own camera will make it easy to follow if you use something else - I have a Canon 40d and Canon Speedlites, and had no problem. I really want to get out now and practice...if I only had access to some of the accessories he has (and an assistant).

REALLY WISH I BOUGHT IT SOONER

The Hot Shoe Diaries
Sorry this is not the type of book i was looking for. A Mate said it got good reports, I have the Nikon videos which some of the book is refering to..

A great book, but not perfect
If you're into off-camera flash photography, this is a very inspirational book, and you'll get a lot of knowledge that will improve your photos. But you can read more about how great this book is in other reviews - I would like to focus on what I think could have been better.

Ironically, one of the worlds greatest photographers (IMHO) uses letters and words to describe how he sets up a shot, instead of using pictures! There are some "production shots" where you can see his set-up, and you get the occasional back-of-a-napkin sketch, but more energy could have been put into showing, in pictures, how it was done.

While "The moment it clicks" contained some good stories, this book is a step closer to a "school book". But it's not quite there. However, I guess this leaves room for another McNally book so I hope to see this in a year or two.

But anyway, I will give this book a solid five star rating!

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