Digital Photography Book, Vol. 2

The Digital Photography Book, Volume 2/Scott Kelby, Berkeley:  Peachpit Press, 2007 (223 p.)

To quote Scott Kelby from Chapter 1, “This is volume 2 of The Digital Photography Book and it picks up where the last book left off (so it’s not an update of that book, it’s new stuff …”  In the same manner as volume 1, Kelby approaches this volume as though he and the reader were out together on a photo shoot and the reader asked how to do a particular task.  The result is an easy to read volume, not overloaded with technical details but instead filled with useful information.  At 223 pages, you get another 200 or so helpful hints or ideas on how to make your photography better.

Volume 1 provided broad coverage of almost every photographic subject.  While volume 2 continues this coverage of multiple areas, the emphasis leans strongly toward “people photography” with longer chapters on lighting, building a studio, portraiture, and wedding photography.  It also includes shorter chapters on landscape, travel, and macro photography but these are clearly not the emphasis of this volume.

Like volume 1, volume 2 closes with two chapters covering pro tips and photo recipes, or techniques used to capture selected sample images.  In both volumes, these two chapters provide some of the most useful and easiest to read information.  As is the case with the rest of volume 2, the emphasis of these two chapters is people photography.  Kelby’s dry humor remains, primarily on the introductory pages of each chapter, and can be read or ignored as the reader prefers.  As a tease, I found his story of his recent contract with National Geographic to be particularly humorous.

Peachpit rates this book as a Beginner Level volume but unless you are a true expert, any reader may find helpful information included.  This is particularly true for photograhers who, like me, prefer areas other than photographing people.

Another good volume that is well worth the investment (by the way, you can get volumes 1, 2, and 3 as a boxed set at considerable savings).