Mitchell Kanashkevich's Seeing the Light

When I first learned about lighting and flash, my head was full of knowledge about how to control the light and use techniques such as using the flash off-camera to control its direction, balancing flash and ambient, all that good stuff.  What was missing was how to use all that technical knowledge in a way that gave me good results. 

If you're in that spot, this book is for you.  Hit the jump to see why I love this book AND to get an amazing offer!


I read a lot about lighting and most of the books and websites I've seen discuss the mechanics of lighting, such as how to control its quality, direction, intensity relative to ambient, etc.  However, the technical aspect of lighting is only a part of the lighting equation.  Knowing that we can bounce light for example, doesn't tell us where we should aim the light for best results.

That's where Mitchell Kanashkevich's Seeing the Light comes in.  Mitchell is an award-winning travel photographer.  In this book, he discusses his techniques for using three lighting tools: flash, reflector and natural light.

As he explains in the book's intro, Mitchell usually doesn't have the time or manpower for complicated lighting setups, and that's why his techniques are usable for many readers of this blog.  You don't need a crew or a truckload of lighting gear to shoot the way he does.  In all of the examples in the book, he uses only one hotshoe flash or one reflector.  That's it.  Very practical and doable.

As I mentioned, the reason I recommend this book is because it addresses the other part of the lighting equation, which I might call lighting design.  In Seeing the Light, Mitchell doesn't just talk about the technical aspect of how the lighting was setup, but *why* the lighting was setup that way.  His rationale for his lighting setup is consistently applied throughout the examples in the book (with great results).  And if you're looking to get direction about lighting design, this book will help you and show you the approach Mitchell uses to get his results.

Speaking of results, great lighting is just one of the key elements in Mitchell's photos.  Mitchell also uses post-processing techniques to bring out the best in his photos, and that's why you ought to pay attention to this amazing offer:  You can get the two e-books, Seeing the Light and Understanding Post-Processing (reviewed here) for the price of one ebook!!!  Isn't that awesome?  Just purchase both through the two-in-one link on Mitchell's site ( http://mitchellkphotos.com/two-in-one.html ) and enter the code "betterfamilyphotos".  If you must know, I get no commissions or anything -- this is purely a favor from Mitchell to our blog readers.  I don't know how long this offer will last -- be sure to take advantage of this offer before it's gone!