As we jump into the holiday season, it comes time for me to give the family ideas for Christmas gifts. I don’t know about you, but this is always somewhat difficult for me. In part due to the fact that most photographic equipment is expense or things you may not want others purchasing for you. In the end, most of my Christmas lists end up being a selection of some misc gear that I haven’t gotten around to purchasing, new LCD protectors, filters, etc. Sometimes the list may contain a print from a favorite photographer. Finally there is always a list of books of DVDs from photographers whose work I admire.
Last year one of the gifts that I received was Tony Sweet’s “Visual Literacy” DVD set. This DVD set later won a Telly award in the How-to/Instructional category (some 13,000 submissions for that). I have enjoyed this DVD set and viewed many section of it several times. This DVD set gives you an intimate look at the many aspects of a fine art photographer’s day to day work. It covers shooting in the field, shooting in the studio (flower work), post-processing the images, printing, how to get started, what equipment Tony uses (and you need), etc. The most valuable part to me are the how-to pointers and tid-bits Tony provides through out the videos – things I always wondered about.
I have added a pointer to this DVD at Amazon on my favorites list in my blog sidebar. It my make a nice addition to your Christmas list.
3 Comments
i just got back from dinner and a talk with tony sweet. it was about plugins. he titled it 'plugins unplugged'. it was really good. i picked up his visual literacy dvd at the end through your recommendation. ive only watched an hour but its great so far. after seeing what some of the plugins can do tho my christmas list got a lot longer.
Kalani, glad you were able to attend one of Tony's talks. I assume you must live out east. I had the privilege to hear him speak on this subject last May here in Portland. I assume you purchase his most recent DVD – it is good too.
yup im east coast for now. northern virginia. the one i got was him shooting in the smoky mountains with a nikon d2xs and then working in his studio doing some macro work and computer editing. i dont think its his latest because nikon doesnt even make the camera he was using anymore. its around 4 hours long. he had another one for sell but i only had 40 bucks and asked susie which one was better for beginners and she recommended the one i bought. hes a great speaker, the turn out was huge. filled over half of a bingo hall, easily two to three hundred people.