http://www.amateurphotographer.co.uk 31
JOE MCNALLYThe book The Real Deal:
Field Notes From the
Life of a Working
Photographerby Joe
McNally is published by
Rocky Nook (ISBN
978-1- 681 98-801-6)
with an RRP of
$50/£TBC. Find out
more at http://www.
rockynook.com.informationally successful and it
would also be emotionally
successful. You seek the emotional
involvement or commitment of the
reader. You need to push their
buttons, make them think and also
give them information all at once
- that‘s not an easy thing to do.’
Allowing mistakes
Most of McNally’s previous books –
such as The Moment It Clicks, The Hot
Shoe Diaries and Sketching Light
- were largely instructional with
advice on topics such as how to light
scenes and how to use flash. But he
reveals, ‘I didn’t want to do that
again. I wanted to flavour this book
with the anecdotal, which, in itself,
is instructional. It was a little bit
complicated because I lay no claim
to being a professional writer. Things
bubble up in my head and then I
kind of reverse engineer it. I’ll
remember that shot was kind of cool
and then I’ll rummage and find
photographs that are fuel to keep
writing about a certain topic.’
He adds, ‘It’s not completely
instructional because it’s not a “howto” book. I hope this goes beyond
the photo market and is interesting
to people just as a window into an
interesting life. I’m very aware a lot
of people buy a photo book and
want it to be a “super highway” to a
goal.... I want to know how to pose
people better, so I’m going to buy
this book on posing. This book isn’t
that. It’s not a “super highway”, it’s a
country road and there are lots of
stops and diversions along the way.
It’s about a life in photography and
what you learn. That learning occurs
both in terms of the world of
cameras and just the world.’
McNally sums up, ‘Good
photography is never formulaic; it’s
not an assembly line. Everything has
some sort of scratches, scars,
differences, happenstance or
mistakes. Some of the better pictures
I’ve made over the years are flat
out flawed or where I fully
acknowledge that I could and should
have done better. Hopefully this
book has a flavour where mistakes
are allowable and ego is deflated. I’ve
made a whole career out of doing
whatever seemed to be the next best
thing to do. I joke with my studio
manager and always tell her that my
operative philosophy for being a
photographer is “the Lord looks
after a fool”.’Rwanda, after the
genocide. Refugee
camp in Goma, in
the Congo, just
over the Rwandan
border. A
panoramic film
shot for a LIFE
story called The
Panorama of WarTop of the Empire
State Building. For a
National Geographic
story called The
Power of Light