Capturing Mood, Ambience & Dramatic Effects [Book Review]

There are plenty of occasions when we’ve taken a photo that is unique, personal and very expressive of a moment, a person, a place, an event. Technical quality in these situations frequently goes out the window.

Author of Capturing Mood, Ambience & Dramatic Effects, Joseph Meehan, calls these images “keepers” or “just great photographs.” Beginning at the end of the process he unpicks the subject and explains how you can shoot that great picture yet still give it some degree of polish and a technical edge. The first point he makes is “to interpret rather than just record a subject …” But t’ain’t easy!

A useful chapter deals with the qualities of light: how to deal with colour casts; the effect of varying colour balance throughout the day … and how to deal with the wide variations of artificial light sources: fluoros, tungsten, sodium lamps etc.

Other topics: contrast; the role of High Dynamic Range; the direction and intensity of light; ISO speeds; aperture and shutter settings. Following on the latter topic, a useful table indicates the optimum shutter speed to capture subjects with some degree of blurr: 1/15 to 1/4 second for walkers; 1/30 to 1/60 second for fast movement like cars. Note: these are suggested shutter speeds to capture the subject with an indication of motion … not the ideal speed to capture the action with sharpness.

And this is the key to the book: it’s all about rules and how to bend them in the quest for expression.

A mountain of useful info. Great book for the ‘mood makers.’

Author: J Meehan.

Publisher: Lark Books.

Distributor: Capricorn Link. 190 pages.

ISBN 13 978 1 60059 577 6.

Price: Currently Available at Amazon for $29.95 (27% off)