Light Science and Magic

THE book to own if you want to understand lighting!

Light Science and Magic provides so much more than just set examples for photographers to follow. This international bestseller provides photographers with a comprehensive theory of the nature and principles of light to allow individual photographers to use lighting to express their own creativity. It will show you how to light the most difficult subjects such as surfaces, metal, glass, liquids, extremes (black-on-black and white-on-white), and people.

With more information specific for digital photographers, a brand new chapter on equipment, much more information on location lighting, and more on photographing people, this brand new fourth edition will make it clear why this is one of the only recommended books by www.strobist.com.

Fil Hunter is a highly respected commercial photographer specializing in still life and special effects photographs for advertising and editorial illustration. During a career spanning over three decades, he has worked for such clients as America Online, US News, Time-Life Books, Life Magazine (27 covers), the National Science Foundation, and National Geographic. He has taught photography at the university level and has served as technical consultant on a number of photographic publications. Mr. Hunter has won the Virginia Professional Photographer's Grand Photographic Award three times.

Steven Biver has over twenty years of experience as a commercial photographer specializing in portraits, still life, photomontage, and digital manipulation. His client list includes DuPont, Johnson & Johnson, Mobil, Newsweek, Conde Nast, and IBM. He has been honored with awards from Communication Arts, Graphis, HOW Magazine, and Adobe, who have also included his work on a Photoshop "extras" disc to inspire other photographers.

Paul Fuqua has worked as an editorial and wildlife photographer for more than thirty-five years. He started his own production company in 1970 and is dedicated to teaching through the use of visuals. Paul has written and produced educational and training material in a variety of fields including law, public safety, history, science, and the environment. For the last ten years he has produced educational material dealing with the natural sciences and the need for global habitat stewardship.

"This is the essential book for learning about how light and lighting works in photography. It is used as the textbook for many college photography studio lighting courses (which is how I discovered it, when taking a studio lighting course at CCSF). Even after taking the class and "mastering" all the exercises, I still re- read this book frequently, and am surprised at little tricks or nuances I never learned before, or learned and then forgot (because that particular thing doesn't come up with most of my photography work)."--CoolTools

"This new edition of the book is based on the behavior of light, and its principles that will not change because the fundamental physics does not. Light: Science & Magic is a book to deal adequately with how light behaves when it reflects from a surface and how the material making the subject determines the appearance of this reflection. This important understanding is not intended to enable photographer to shoot good pictures like those in this book but rather to transfer those images to any subject matter, using any equipment."--NeoPopRealismJournal.com

"I have used the 3rd edition of this book when I teach. The 4th Edition improves on the earlier version and brings one "up-to-date." This is a text I'll continue to recommend. This is a book that all photographers should have in their library."--Lancaster Camera Club.org

"There are numerous photography books available and often it is difficult to make the right choice. 'Light Science and Magic' definitely stands out from the bunch.. This book can get very technical covering scientific end of how light works in all sorts of situations. Do not expect to read this resource like a novel, unless you are like me and thrive on technical end of photography. However the book is not created for photography rocket scientists only. It's designed the way that even complex concepts are illustrated in diagrams that any visual folks can understand easily. 'Light Science and Magic' fourth edition was just released at the end of 2011. All the info is up to date!"--LearnMyShot.com

How to Learn Lighting; Light, The Raw Material of Photography; The Management of Reflection and the Family of Angles; Surface Appearances; Revealing Shape and Contour; Metal; The Case of the Disappearing Glass; An Arsenal of Lights; The Extremes; Traveling Light; Index

NEW: Equipment, Location Lighting