Creative 52: Weekly Projects to Invigorate Your Photography Portfolio 1st Edition

This is an excellent and well written book! Lindsay Adler gives great tips on weekly projects that spark creativity. All of the chapters are easy to understand, and I like the way she added camera info, as well as the methods she used to create the images. I also liked the way she spoke about the inspiration of each photo. I've been following Lindsay's work for a couple of years now, and was happy to see her beauty retouching techniques nicely laid out in it's own chapter. Before, I was frantically taking notes on her live demonstrations, but now I have it all at hand. Thank you Lindsay, this is just what I needed to spark my creativity!

Lindsay Adler's book "Creative 52: Weekly Projects to Invigorate Your Photography Portfolio" is an engaging and educational look at ways to expand your portfolio and skills. She shares her creative process and breaks down 52 projects into three different categories, Concepts, Techniques and Post-Production. Each section is designed to help you develop a certain set of photographic skills.Each of the projects is also broken down into sections. Description-where the overall project is described. Inspiration-where the author shares the photographers that inspired her for this project are shared, and the reasons why. My Solution- where Lindsay talks about the image that is connected to the project and how she developed the idea behind it. Each picture also has the metadata included which is a plus.I will be going back to this book over and over as I continue to develop my photographic style and skill.

I just recently discovered Lindsey Adler and was delighted to see she was capturing what I had only hoped to do in my imagination. This book is a dynamite package filled with compelling ideas, tips, and the challenges are right down my street now making a switch from owning a booming decorating business for the past 14 years, to now going full speed into photography. This is EXACTLY what I needed. Thank you to Lindsey for sharing her secrets on YouTube and for providing this awesome book to keep us on our toes! Hope she does another book soon!!!

As stated by the other reviewers, the book is packed with numerous ideas and suggestions leading to better photos. However, the discussion is all directed towards the author's special area of photography: fashion. For those who have this specialty, this is an invaluable guide. But how useful is the book for those who take very different kinds of photos? I did a quick (and rather arbitrary analysis) of the projects to see how match of the discussion could be transferred to other types of subject matter. My judgment was that 20 (of the 52) projects could be adapted by those shooting any subject matter. Twelve more might be useful with some further work, and 20 seemed remote from any field outside of fashion. Others may very well make different judgements about where to place each assignment. The conclusion seems to stand, however: the direct usefulness of this volume will depend upon the details of the subject matter at which you are directing your camera. All photographers, however, can appreciate in general terms the kind of analyses being done in the book even if not directly related to their work.

I purchased this book last year for myself and for a friend in hopes of improving our photography. Most of the projects were very engaging, including some of the more challenging processing assignments in the later chapters. Lindsay Adler's writing/teaching style is very down to earth and her instructions are generally easy to follow. Both my friend and I looked forward to each week's challenge and to see how we each interpreted the assignments. I would definitely recommend running through the challenges with another person because it helps keep you motivated. And, bottom line, your photography is likely to improve.

Do you stay within the lines? Or are you the type who see lines as mere guide lines and venture beyond them? If so then this book is for you. It is for the person who has a decent understanding of how a camera works and can control lighting, since most of the examples shown require taking your camera off the Professional mode (P). What makes this book interesting is seeing the world through Lindsay eyes and each image has an impression of her heart on them. So while you may copy her style, you must venture away from them and discover your own style. To that end this book is highly recommended. To help you control lighting situations "better" I also recommend Lindsay's other book "Shooting in Sh*tty light".

This book is full of creative, practical exercises for all skill levels. As a photographer always on the lookout for more shooters to follow, I especially love that she references a handful of photographers to check out that relate to each exercise. Many of these exercises are fundamental, timeless practices that will outlive whatever current trends happen to be. This book should not only be taught to every new student, but any veteran photographer will also learn more than a few things.

Most of the projects in the book are of a more un conventional of nature and nothing I would consider greatly helpful .