Bill Viola: The Passions

Professional Techniques for Pet and Animal Photography
Average customer rating:

Good practical ideas

More for traditional studio portraits

Great Pet Photo Book

The Best Pet Photography Book

Professional Techniques for Pet and Animal Photography
Debrah H. Muska
Manufacturer: Amherst Media, Inc.
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

General | Photography | Arts & Photography | Subjects | Books
Reference | Photography | Arts & Photography | Subjects | Books
General | How-to | Photography | Arts & Photography | Subjects | Books
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Creative Canine Photography

How to Take Great Pet Pictures: Recipes for Outstanding Results With Any Camera

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ASIN: 1584281006

Book Description

From posing a wiggly ferret to encouraging a frog to sit in one place, this guide's specialized techniques will benefit both existing animal photographers and newcomers looking to diversify their portrait business. Discussed are the personality traits best suited to the business, ways to create a people- and animal-friendly studio, and tips for making clients and their pets feel at home in the studio through the selection of decor, backdrops, furnishings, and props that wear well and are easy to sanitize. Technical advice includes which lenses and cameras lend themselves to animal portraiture, the advantages of shooting digitally, and the best shutter speeds and apertures for the job. The unique challenges of pet photography are covered, such as how to get the best expressions from pets with attention-getters suited to each type of pet. Special techniques for working with dogs, cats, horses, birds, ferrets, reptiles, and other creatures are provided.

Customer Reviews:

Good practical ideas.......2007-05-13

There are a lot of good practical tips that I liked in this book such as using fabric backdrops instead of paper incase of 'accidents'
and how using natural brown tones enhances fur. Also how it's a good idea to use a low table for the animal to stand on, not too low that they jump off but not too high that they think they are at the vets. I would say this book is aimed more at established studio photographers wanting to branch into pet photography rather than novices wanting to learn how to photograph animals.I would've liked a little bit more information for someone starting out but it is full of very good tips.

More for traditional studio portraits.......2006-08-02

I can't say I didn't learn anything from this book. It provides a few good tips on how to understand and deal with animals behaviours. I found the book is more focused on traditional studio photography rather than candid and outdoor photos.

Great Pet Photo Book.......2006-04-15

I bought this book from pet photographer Barbara Rice at the WPPI Convention. She presented a very informative program on this subject and SHE recommended this book, which she offered for sale after the program.

I figured the book had to be pretty good if the speaker was recommending it and she didn't even write it. I was not disappointed! There were lots of great photos and ideas throughout the book. The marketing was also well presented.

This is a must if you want to photograph dogs, cats or horses.

The Best Pet Photography Book.......2006-03-16

This is the best pet and animal photography book available. The author really knows what she is doing as evidenced in the photographs. Her shooting and business ideas are very helpful.

Average customer rating:

A Broad Brush

Professional Nature Photography
Nigel Hicks
Manufacturer: Focal Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

Professional | Photography | Arts & Photography | Subjects | Books

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ASIN: 0240515218

Book Description

Packed with hints, tips and essential information, this is a practical guide to getting started as a professional nature photographer. Its focus is on how the industry works, recognizing that success in this profession does not rely entirely on your skills of photography, but also on how you organize and market those talents.

Based on the author's own experience of running a successful nature photography business, Professional Nature Photography offers a unique insight into the essential tools and techniques: from the equipment you need, to researching and finding new clients, negotiating contracts, managing finance, working to a brief and an understanding of professional ethics.

Features include:
· stunning colour photographs
· suggested approaches to typical assignments
· realistic, practical advice for professional business practice
· an appendix with addresses for agencies, societies and conservation organisations

The book also includes an overview of specialist skills, such as how to read difficult lighting conditions, shooting from a hide, stalking animals, photographing captive animals, photographing plants and underwater photography. The author sets the subject in context and includes a discussion of the impact of digital imaging, the role of nature photography in society and environmental matters.

Whether you are just starting out as a professional, or wishing to brush up on knowledge and skill, Professional Nature Photography is both an inspirational guide and an essential reference tool for hands-on information.

Nigel Hicks ABIPP, FRGS has a PhD in Biology and runs a successful nature photography business. He has lived and worked extensively abroad as a self-employed photographer and writer, including long periods in Taiwan, Japan, and Hong Kong. His photographs are to be found in many publications and he has undertaken many challenging publishing assignments abroad, such as documenting the diverse range of wildlife in China and the Philippines. He writes regularly for the photographic press and is a fellow of the Royal Geographical Society, an associate of the British Institute of Professional Photography and a member of the Scientific Exploration Society.

Inspirational colour photographs show you just what you can achieve
Benefit from a professional's suggestions for approaches to typical assignments
Full of realistic, practical advice for professional business practice to ensure you don't go wrong

Customer Reviews:

A Broad Brush.......2004-03-20

Professional Nature Photography by Nigel Hicks

This book is aimed at guiding a photographer into a career in nature photography. It is not concerned with photography techniques (for the most part) but rather with the logistics of earning a living as a nature photographer. The approach is a logical one, first giving the reader an overview of the nature photography "industry", and then telling one how to find clients. Hicks discusses such things as legal rights, photo libraries and even self-publishing.

The author writes about traveling for photography and how to prepare for it. He acknowledges that one of the biggest problems that the professional photographer will face is loneliness, and suggests ways of dealing with it. He talks about managing the office and buying equipment, both photographic and otherwise. In a chapter on "special skills", he provides a concise statement of nature photography techniques that can serve well as a short course in the subject.

I particularly enjoyed his chapter on professional issues. I had never considered the ethics of photographing in a "disreputable" zoo, and thereby supporting its work.

The book is profusely illustrated with Hicks' nature photographs, which are of high quality, but bear no relationship to the text. Moreover, the text itself mostly suggests what I found to be self-evident. The details are not emphasized. For example, the author says that it may be possible to barter with hotels and airlines while working for other clients. I would have liked to know which functionary in an organization was best to approach to initiate such a deal. But that level of detail was never provided. One thing of which the book convinced me is that breaking into nature photography is one tough job.

I found that even though it was not aimed at showing you how to become a professional photographer, the biographies contained in "The World?s Top Photographers: Wildlife", by Terry Hope, provided more clues about routes into a professional photography career while showing a world-class collection of pictures. And John Shaw's "Business of Nature Photography" still seems a better guide to making a living in this field.

Book Description

A book of interviews with the most elusive of cartoonists and father of underground comics.

Few cartoonists have affected our world the way Robert Crumb has. From busting cultural and sexual taboos for artists everywhere with his pioneering underground comix to his never-ending drive to improve his art, he has rightly drawn comparisons to Brueghel by Time magazine's Robert Hughes.

Collecting four long out-of-print interviews from the Utne Independent Press Award-winning Comics Journal's archive in a oversized, art-book format, this third volume in The Comics Journal Library provides an absorbing oral history of comics in the latter half of the 20th century from the point of view of an artist who single-handedly shaped it to great extent. As the acknowledged father of underground comix, virtually every comic that has been drawn over the last 30 years and aspires to anything beyond puerile kiddie entertainment owes a debt to his groundbreaking efforts.

These are the finest, longest, and most comprehensive interviews ever conducted with the man—if you thought the Crumb film was intimate, than this collection, spanning his life and career, covering his peers and family, his views on sex, politics, art, racism and culture, his flirtations with success on America's terms and his later rejections of those terms, and his view of the world around him will surely impress. The book also boasts of a handful of probing essays on Crumb's oeuvre by the Journal's sharpest critics and a stunning color gallery of the artist's art and ephemera.

Customer Reviews:

Interviews, not artwork (mostly).......2007-08-13

Interviews are all very well, but if you're looking for Crumbs comic art, try something else. I recommend 'America', 'Draws the blues', 'Troubles with Women', there are probably others (the 'Handbook' was mostly interviews, too, though).

Book Description

The plots of many films pivot on the moment when a dowdy girl with bad hair, ill-fitting outdated clothing, and thick glasses is changed into an almost unrecognizable glamour girl. Makeover scenes such as these are examined beginning with 1942's Now, Voyager. The study examines whether the film makeover is voluntary or involuntary, whether it is always successful, how much screen time it takes up, where in the narrative structure it falls, and how the scene is actually filmed.

Films with a Pygmalion theme, such as My Fair Lady, Vertigo, and Shampoo, are examined in terms of gender relations: whether the man is content with his creation and what sort of woman is the ideal. Some films' publicity capitalizes on a glamorous star's choice to play an unattractive character, as discussed in a chapter examining stars like Bette Davis, Meryl Streep, and Cameron Diaz. Topics also include folk literature's Cinderella tale, men as the inspiration for makeovers in teen flicks films like Clueless, She's All That, and Me, Natalie, and class repositioning in such movies as Working Girl, Pretty Woman, and Grease. Photographs are presented in a before/after format, showing the change in the madeover character.

Customer Reviews:

not just academic...extremely entertaining.......2004-06-17

Ford and Mitchell sure do know their stuff. This book is as enjoyable as it is insightful. Anyone who is interested in the undeniably huge fad that is the "MAKEOVER" (be it "interested" as in "love it" or "interested" as in "people have lost their minds")will find Ford & Mitchell digging into the past to help explain the current phenomena. Finding the history behind the trend, Ford & Mitchell shine a new light on this obsession we have with trying to make everything "better". The deeper questions they pose are important ones for society. Buy this book, sit back and enjoy their wit and intellect (as they have both in spades). And by the way...glasses really aren't unattractive...so don't believe everything you see on the silver screen.

Raised Eyebrows.......2004-06-14

The Makeover in Movies: Before and After in Hollywood Films, 1941-2002, by Elizabeth A. Ford and Deborah C. Mitchell, is an interesting study of what might be called "eyebrow movies." In several of the films that Ford and Mitchell examine (Now, Voyager, The Princess Diaries, and Miss Congeniality, for instance) thick eyebrows are one of Cinderella's attributes before she gets made over, finds Prince Charming, and finally achieves self-fulfillment (usually in that order). Thick or dark eyebrows = ugly. I don't get it. As Ford and Mitchell ask, don't movie-makers realize how attractive audiences find actresses like Salma Hayek and Penelope Cruz?

The book is incisive and witty, but one problem with this film genre is that just by identifying it and outlining its characteristics it's hard to avoid making negative judgments about most examples. Ford and Mitchell do point out movies with positive messages and happy endings (Amy Heckerling's Clueless, writer Nia Vardalos's My Big Fat Greek Wedding), as well as films with unhappy endings but worthwhile warnings (director Brian Forbes's 1975 version of Ira Levin's The Stepford Wives). However most makeover movies give would-be Cinderellas bad messages, especially about beauty, individuality, and women's reliance on each other.

As My Big Fat Greek Wedding and The Stepford Wives show, there's a thin line between romance and horror, and in the movies it's usually Prince Charming who crosses it. Either WASP Ian sees the beauty inside Greek-American Toula and they live happily ever after, or Walter murders his feminist, career-absorbed wife Joanna and replaces her with a perky-breasted, servile robot. There isn't much middle ground.

Sometimes books about a particular type of movie make you understand the films in a way you didn't before. This book helps you understand better why you're rooting for Cinderella to change, and makes you think a little more about whether she should.

Three Trios from Bach Cantatas
Average customer rating:
Three Trios from Bach Cantatas

Manufacturer: Alfred Publishing Company
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

General | Music | Entertainment | Subjects | Books
ASIN: 0757906907

Book Description

Did you know that Halloween is America's second favorite holiday for creating crafts? With these delightful projects, anyone can make their next Halloween event "scream" with style! Decorate for indoor or outdoor Halloween parties, special family get-togethers, or the neighborhood trick-or-treaters with a variety of fast, fun projects for crafters at any skill level.

· Twenty projects include a table runner with matching napkins, fanciful fabric pumpkins, a wall quilt, painted glassware, party invitations and favors, luminaries, and a floor cloth

· Find a range of craft techniques, from sewing and stamping to patchwork and painting--there's even a lesson on perfect pumpkin carving

· Inspiring photos are filled with Halloween decorating and entertaining ideas for kids and adults alike

· Projects come from popular designers including Sandy Bonsib, Jaynette Huff, Linda Johnson, Little Quilts, Livia McRee, Jenni Page, and Sheila Haynes Rauen

Customer Reviews:

Terrific, original ideas that won't break the bank!.......2001-08-29

Although the cover of my book is different from the one shown (I have the softcover edition), the crafts in this book are clever, easy to make and the directions are top-notch. Some of the crafts require kit purchases (haunted bird house & candy corn candles), but everything else can be crafted from scratch. I especially liked the witch's hat invitations, the cat banner and the cardstock lanterns, lit with glow sticks. I own every Halloween craft book (with the exception of Martha Stewart's) that Amazon offers and this is right at the top of the pile when it's time to think about Halloween. Enjoy!

The Seeds of Innovation: Cultivating the Synergy That Fosters New Ideas
Average customer rating:

A good overview of the role of innovation in organizations

This book is needed NOW, more than ever!

Gives the reader real innovation techniques to use

Relevant, Practical, Good Tool

Timely and well written - Dundon reveals real insight

The Seeds of Innovation: Cultivating the Synergy That Fosters New Ideas
Elaine Dundon
Manufacturer: AMACOM/American Management Association
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

General | Business & Investing | Subjects | Books
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Management | Management & Leadership | Business & Investing | Subjects | Books
Organizational Change | Organizational Behavior | Business & Investing | Subjects | Books
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ASIN: 0814471463

Book Description

Breakthrough innovation is a prerequisite for success in almost any organization, yet the actual management of innovation has only recently begun to receive the attention it deserves. Here, innovation thought leader Elaine Dundon offers a "how-to" prescription for building creative and strategic innovation skills at all levels of an organization (rather than focusing on decision-making levels only) -- and explains how to produce measurable results that translate directly to the bottom line.

Using field-tested concepts and practical examples, and featuring easy-to-apply processes and concrete thinking tools, this straight-talking book provides a broadly applicable guide to innovation -- one that's not limited to a specific industry sector. Today's most comprehensive, one-stop innovation resource, it describes:

* The three necessary components of innovation -- creative, strategic, and transformational thinking * Methods for applying innovative thought to existing products, processes, and business models * 90 great innovations and 90 trends to consider

Customer Reviews:

A good overview of the role of innovation in organizations.......2005-11-09

In her book, The Seeds of Innovation, Elaine Dundon shows how companies can foster and grow this innovation. Dundon founded a company called The Innovation Group Consulting, Inc. This is a consulting group that works with individuals and corporations to help them with innovation.
Dundon focuses on three major types of innovations: Efficiency Innovation, Evolutionary Innovation and Revolutionary Innovation. All new innovations within an organization can fall into these three categories. Which type of these three innovations the organization chooses is dependent on what goals the organization seeks. Efficiency Innovations deals with making a product or service faster or more efficient, such as extending service hours of a fast food chain. Evolutionary innovation deals with making an already existing service or product "distinctly new and better," such as the ATM for 24 hour banking. Revolutionary Innovation focuses on introducing a radical new change to the marketplace, such as McDonald's did with fast food. All organizations need to decide on which three of these innovations to focus on.
In The Seeds of Innovation Dundon also focuses on individual innovation as well as organizational innovation. She creates a nine-step method for improving innovation within organizations. In order to implement these steps Dundon first focuses on the ability of the individual to be creative in an organization. This creativity can come from a number of tools Dundon offers, such as mind mapping, brainstorming as well as different ways of thinking and asking questions.
I did not like a few things about the book. I felt it was overall interesting and informative, however I don't think it broke new ground on the subject. A lot of the most powerful ideas found in the book were paraphrased from others, such as Michael Ray's "voice of judgment". It's good to explain such ideas clearly because they are important in innovation, however I didn't feel Dundon brought enough of her own ideas to the table. All her ideas are very intuitive and mundane. She seems to be just saying essentially the same themes from different angles. The book could be easily boiled down to a handful of key points. Moreover, I don't think managers will learn a whole lot from the last two sections of the book. These seem to go over very basic concepts of innovation within an organization.
Anyone who has little backround in the world of buisness will find this book informative. CEO's or other people with buisness experience may find parts of the book simple, however their are a number of techniques all people can benefit from. This is a clear, simple read but i just think there are better books on the subject out there.

This book is needed NOW, more than ever!.......2004-12-10

Dundon makes it clear that "innovation" is not the same thing as creativity. Importantly, she establishes that the work of innovation requires discipline with an explicit focus on results. Indeed, her book should be required reading by anyone who is serious about personal and organizational performance. In a very practical and readable way, The Seeds of Innovation provides essential guidance for dealing with change while adding value on a sustainable basis. It's about time that someone demonstrated how real innovation can and does work! Now it's time to plant, cultivate, and harvest the "seeds of innovation" by reading and practicing the essential wisdom in Elaine Dundon's book!

Gives the reader real innovation techniques to use.......2003-10-29

Innovation is an overwrought, overused word/topic with many books written about it. You are reading this review because you are seeking thinking tools and techniques to apply to your version of Innovation, whether for an organization, community, or to be used personally. This book provides you, the reader/user, with an excellent and sensible framework to define, understand, develop, and implement processes that empower and support environments where "innovation" can happen (you still need to do the work). Dundon defines innovation as "the profitable implementation of strategic creativity." Whether your "profit" is quantified in money or good will, this book gently instructs you in the finer arts of achieving real innovative results by taking a holistic 3 innovation-dimension views on your challenges. I have purchased 20 copies of this book and given them to professional colleagues, the book is that rewarding. Innovation is not creativity, which is a very common misperception. More information can be found at www dot seedsofinnovation dot com I higly recommend this book as one of the most important books in its field ever written.

Relevant, Practical, Good Tool.......2003-07-13

Innovate or stagnate. Or, put another way, innovate or stand helplessly and watch your competitors eat your lunch! Wise leaders stimulate, encourage, reinforce, and reward innovation. If you're not doing this in your organization, now is the time to start...and this book will show you the path.

The book is organized into three parts: The Seeds of Creative Thinking, The Seeds of Strategic Thinking, and The Seeds of Transformational Thinking. Dundon, a consultant and speaker on innovation, takes us out of the proverbial box. The process starts with an introductory chapter that delivers an introduction to innovation management. In this presentation, the author sets the stage nicely for the value of the balance of the book.

Each aspect of thinking is essential to making a difference in an organization. Dundon explains the what, the why, the how, and provides examples in a very instructive text. Each chapter addresses skills and strategies to generate creativity, a strategic approach (big picture and visionary), and practical how-to ideas to support innovation in organizational settings. Reading the chapters alone is worthwhile, but we're not done yet. Following the eleven chapters are five appendices, a recommended reading list, and an index.

The appendices provide an explanation of the nine step innovation process, a list of probing questions to energize innovative thinking, 99 innovations and 99 trends. Readers will find it valuable to go through the list of trends and consider their influence on how their organization does business...and will do business in the future. As a futurist by profession, I can vouch for this being a comprehensive and highly usable list. The additional criteria section, while not too long, offers even more thought-provoking insights to check your work, stimulate more discussion, and refine the product of your synergistic thinking.

Readers will find this book valuable as a cover-to-cover read, but then highly effective as a tool to achieve significant results.

Timely and well written - Dundon reveals real insight.......2002-07-17

The Seeds of Innovation: Cultivating the Synergy that Fosters New Ideas comes at a critical time in the quest for new ideas and breakthrough efficiencies by corporations, small businesses, universities and governments.

Book Description

This digital document is an article from The Futurist, published by World Future Society on March 1, 2003. The length of the article is 924 words. The page length shown above is based on a typical 300-word page. The article is delivered in HTML format and is available in your Amazon.com Digital Locker immediately after purchase. You can view it with any web browser.

Citation Details
Title: How to think ahead--and stay ahead. (Books in Brief).(Book Review) (book review)
Author: Lane Jennings
Publication: The Futurist (Magazine/Journal)
Date: March 1, 2003
Publisher: World Future Society
Volume: 37 Issue: 2 Page: 59(2)

Article Type: Book Review

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