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The Hot Shoe Diaries: Big Light from Small Flashes

The Hot Shoe Diaries: Big Light from Small Flashes

by Joe McNally
Publisher: New Riders
Release Date: March 2009
ISBN: 9780321602497
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Book 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.

Table of Contents

  1. Title Page
  2. Copyright Page
  3. Contents
  4. Acknowledgments
  5. This Is Not the Manual
  6. Part One: Nuts ‘n’ Bolts
    1. What I Use... and Why and When I Use It
    2. A Little Bit of Dis and a Little Bit of Dat
    3. Da Grip
  7. Part Two: One Light!
    1. A Place to Put the Light
    2. Up to Your Ass in Alligators
    3. Good Bad Light
    4. A Light in the Doorway
    5. The Swamp, Revisited
    6. Tune in to Station “i-TTL”
    7. Up on the Roof
    8. How to Light a Fence
    9. Cheap Arena Lighting
    10. Make the Sunrise
    11. Light as a Feather
    12. Father Pre-Flash
    13. The “Killer Flick of Light”
    14. How to Light an Elf
    15. Make the Available Light Unavailable
    16. Put Stuff in Front of Your Lights
    17. Dad!
    18. 80 Plus 20 Equals Good Light
    19. Lacey Light
    20. Strobe Strategy
    21. Smoke and Windows
    22. Hakeem the Dream
    23. FP Means Good DOF
    24. Flash in Real Life
    25. Light ’Em, Dano!
    26. It Don’t Gotta Be Human to Light It
    27. The Lady with the Light in the Lake
    28. One Light in the Parking Lot
    29. One Light in the Window
    30. One Light in the Garden
  8. Part Three: Two or More
    1. Show the Tattoo! Or, The Remarkable Rehabilitation of the Notorious Bubbles
    2. Gellin’
    3. Quick Rigs for 30-Second Portraiture
    4. Do You Have a Bedsheet?
    5. Window Light Is a Beautiful Thing
    6. Smooth Light
    7. When in Venice
    8. Dancer in the Ruins
    9. It’s Right There on Paper
    10. Shadow Man
    11. Faces in the Forest
    12. Dynamic Dancing
    13. Gettin’ Fancy
    14. This One Goes to Eleven
    15. Some Light Conversation
    16. Groups!
    17. Lighting Kit for the Creepy-Guy-in-the-Alley Shot
    18. Let There Be Light!
  9. Part Four: Lotsa Lights
    1. How to Give Birth to a Speedlight
    2. A Great Wall of Light
    3. Northern Light
    4. The Tree of Woe
    5. How to Build a Backyard Studio
    6. Don’t Light It, Light Around It
    7. Goin’ Glam and Throwin’ Sparks
    8. And Now for Something Completely Different...
    9. Beach Light
    10. Plane, But Not Simple
    11. Rollin’ with Pride of Midtown
  10. Appendix: What’s This Button Do?
  11. Index