Gregory Heisler: 50 portraits

Gregory Heisler's first book was published today. It has the succinct title "50 Portraits". I was very surprised when I received a thick, large book. 50 Portraits is a little bigger than an A4 sheet of paper, printed on pleasant paper, and Greg Heisler's pictures are shown off beautifully. It also has over 200 pages.

So it's a picture book with very worth seeing portraits of mostly famous contemporaries: Mohammed Ali, Carl Lewis, Georg Buch, Hugh Grant, Shaquille O'Neal, Danny DeVito, Liam Neeson, Ed Harris, Joni Mitchell, Bruce Springsteen, and and and. Gregory Heisler obviously got everyone in front of his lens. And he created an individual portrait for each one. No two are alike.

In which book "50 Portraits" He now not only shows these pictures, but also reports on the shoot, shows missed shots and - this is where it gets interesting for the photographer - tells the lighting idea behind the picture. We rarely find out about technical details, but in most cases that wouldn't make any sense. Many pictures were taken with large format cameras or medium format cameras. Exact values ​​for aperture, time and the amount of flash used are of little use. It's much more appealing to learn why Greg Heisler set the light the way he did. Or what he wanted to express with the picture and how the lighting should support this message.

In he says in a short video also why he wrote the book like that and you will find out something about one of his pictures.

What's nice is that he's open and honest about the fact that his ideas didn't always work. Sometimes he shows the negatives in front of the actual image and it is clear to see how he worked towards the final image.

In any case, my autumn evenings are now saved. There is a lot to discover in the book. And I'm happy reading it his humorous voice still have in my ear. This increases the reading pleasure even more...