Book Review:

The Complete Guide To Professional Wedding Photography, Creating a more profitable business. By Damien Lovegrove

I purchased this book only a week or so ago from Amazon for £9.99 (RRP £19.99)

The description write up promised "In this book, I share with you the secrets of fusing art with commerce and give you the vital tools for great achievement."
Sadly this was not the case and the overall style of the book comes across like something you would order through Blurb etc...

The book is full of pictures and a lot of them are very good but the actual writing of the book flops at the first hurdle in a big way.

The second chapter, titled 'Developing a Style' has a paragraph stating you should develop a style that makes you unique and set you aside from your competitors. The chapter then unfolds in a barrage of reason's why you shouldn't develop a style but be free flowing and match the current styles of other photographers because if you do something that is different you run the risk of being unfashionable. Now its either have a unique style or don't, its very hard to do both.
Oh and just a quick one it states nothing in the whole chapter about how to explore or actually develop your own style.

That is just a brief look at one of the chapters but it sums the book up.
Even when they write about 'The Wedding Day' or 'Digital Post-Production Workflow' it feels too much like brief account of what they do... not a guide to what they do but actually a brief account on what they do, let me explain.

Whilst reading 'The Wedding Day' chapter I was expecting advice on exposure control in different locations or stuff alike. What I found was things like:

"I shoot the wide on my 35mm lens and swap to the 100mm for the rest"

OK, there are little hints and tips but please all it goes through is like a blow for blow account on what they do at a wedding but with out the actual detail to make it worth wild reading.

It's the same for the workflow chapter, it describes what they do but not really why or how...

In my eye's I think this book would be better titled "The Complete Guide to Professional Wedding Photography, For Someone Who Is Not Interested In Photography Or Weddings"

I would not call it a guide but more like a story book. This book has failed to guide me, except away from any other books by Damien Lovegrove.

Thanks for reading,

Phil Green

www.imageandeye.co.uk