Mastering the Model Shoot: Everything a Photographer Needs to Know Before, During, and After the Shoot (Voices That Matter)

I've read a lot of photography books and this one is relatively unique in that it talks candidly about most every step of producing a shoot involving models, from hiring to makeup to hair to styling to lighting to posing to marketing. It's very current as of 2014 and discusses modern technologies like social networking and Photoshop.The author uses his own photography to illustrate the book, and there are many really nice professional-quality pictures that show his style, which usually involves strobes, pro-level makeup and styling, and a lot of smoke. His images tend to have interesting expression and posing set off with nice lighting and often a few props, I enjoyed them.One peculiar thing about the writing is that the author is native Dutch and expressions involving honesty must be part of the idiom there because he uses expressions like "I'll be honest", "To be honest", and "In all honesty" over and over again to the point of hilarity.So, in all honesty, "Mastering the Model Shoot" is a highly recommended book for photographers seeking to build their portfolios and work professionally with fashion and glamour models. To be honest, you can't go wrong buying it!

Frank is an excellent photographer and instructor. Although I have seen Frank's training courses online, this is the first book of his that I have purchased. The book is of the same high quality as his training.This book isn't the typical get some good lighting and you have a shoot, but rather covers the importance of models, locations, clothing, and styling and then gets to the lighting. The author's approach is concise and convincing and always provides photographic or screen shot examples to reinforce the ideas.The book is targeted at model and glamour photography, but a lot of the material can be applied to general people photography and environmental portraiture...lots of ideas on location shots included in the book.I highly recommend the book.

The book is structured into 14 chapters and describes every aspect of model shooting. The text is written in a short, clear way. It has many hints, based on the author's personal experiences. There are a lot of sample photos, 'behind the scene' pics, drawings and screenshots.So you are able to go through the book in small steps, without an overdose of information in each chapter. - 'Highly recommended' for all (experienced) photographers, who seriously will make a step in forward in model shooting!

This is a great book for photographers that already have a good understanding of the technical aspects of image making (shooting, lighting, and post processing), and are interested in learning about working with models (with emphasis on Fashion Photography). Doorhof's easy-going writing style is a real pleasure to read (how many books use emoticons in the text?), and he holds back nothing when teaching material. The book has plenty of example images that clearly illustrate the ideas being expressed, which will help the reader absorb the material.Note the Kindle edition suffers from the same problem all photography books on Kindle have: the images often don't align well with the text, leaving you guessing and flipping back and forth to match the text with the images depending on how the device decides the render the content.The first half dozen chapters are by far the best, and cover hard-to-find information about the entire process of a shoot, including everything from finding and working with models, to building a team (stylists, MUA, hair), finding locations and using props. There's some really good material here that gives you great perspective on everything involved in a shoot. The material that covers finding talent through sites like Model Mayhem was particularly interesting, and Doorhof shares some lessons he's learned about these networking sites that is very useful. If you're interested in TF shoots, and don't know quite where to start, this is an excellent resource.The book then moves on to covering more technical aspects of shooting, including working with natural and studio light. There are some very nice images in these chapters (and throughout the book), although the instruction here is honestly pretty disorganized. There are a lot of technical aspects of studio lighting (flash exposure, mixing flash/ambient, light meters, etc) that take time to understand. I've spent a good deal of time researching these topics, and have come to the conclusion that many instructors fail to teach this properly, because they don't really start off by explaining things from first principles, but jump in somewhere in the middle instead (and Doorhof also does this). Side tip: Mark Wallace's workshop videos are among the best source of technical lighting info; also check out Neil Van Niekirk's books.Doorhof's technical explanations of lighting in this book can be outright confusing. You can see he's trying to explain things to a beginner, but he mixes way too much information in his descriptions, and misses key points in his thinking, so it's very easy to get lost unless you already know what you're doing. A particularly harmful approach Doorhof uses is to mix incident and reflective metering when determining the right flash/ambient exposure, and jumping off into doing reciprocity calculations before really explaining the entire process. I think he makes the process more complicated than it has to be for what he wanted to explain, and the descriptions were both long and very confusing.Chapter 10 describes more technical information, mostly about parts of a colour-managed workedflow: calibration of cameras, monitors, and light meters. There's good information here, but the information is naturally quite simplified (after all, it's only a single chapter). While the real nuts and bolts of what's happening and why isn't really explained well, there's enough covered that you'll know what to search for if you want to learn more.Chapter 11 covers some basic retouching tips in Photoshop. I find books that jam in Photoshop tips like this often a bit of a waste, since it's not enough to teach someone who's unfamiliar with Photoshop, and is also likely to be pretty basic stuff for the experience PS user. The only reader that can benefit from such a casual exploration of PS topics is someone who is just dabbling and doesn't really understand what's happening, and just pushing sliders and following an instruction manual. My advice is to seek dedicated resources on retouching, and skip this chapter. It's not that there's bad information here, but the instruction is of very limited value.There's a small chapter that follows on marketing you work. Doorhof's opinions about using various social media sites, and there pros/cons are explained (from Doorhof's perspective). This chapter didn't really add much to the book, and seemed a bit jammed in.The book ends with some end-to-end photo shoots, recapping various tips covered throughout the book.While this book is on the whole an excellent read for those starting out in Fashion Photography, perhaps its biggest flaw is that it tries to cover too much. The parts that are more about technical aspects rather than specifically about Fashion/model work/etc were mediocre/average at best, but the rest of the material about the process of Fashion shoots that binds everything together is pure gold. Still, the overall message is clear: the technical aspects are just a means to an end, and the creative considerations are king. By the end of this book, you'll get a good feeling for what Fashion photography involves, and learn things you may not have considered in the past. So despite its flaws, this is still a great book, that I would definitely recommend for people interested in this genre of photography.

This book is valuable in so many ways. It provides a perfect path for organizing a team, styling a shoot and creating art. More importantly, it's a great jumping off place to create your own art and not just "shoot like Frank."It's easy, conversational style sounds just like Frank does on his videos and podcasts. It's accessible on so many levels, from amateur to professional. I liked it so much, I put it on my holiday shopping list for several photographer friends (that way I don't have to share mine).

Frank really outdid himself here. This book is truly A-Z in model photography. Hell, you could even apply a lot of this to other genre's of photography. I expected things about lighting and metering, as everyone does with Frank. But he even goes into things like Social Media - Facebook, Twitter. Marketing yourself in general. How to deal with finding models for TFP and paid.All the technical stuff is there too, i particularly like the chapter which goes through the whole shoot start to finish. This will now become a great reference book for various issues that pop up with my shoots. Modern and practical, if you aren't using this book, you are missing out.