I
I
have entered a stage of my life in which creating photographs is my focus.
I have started to wean myself from the teaching, speaking, and lecturing
about photography I’ve done over the past ten years, at more than four hun-
dred events to thousands of photographers. In making this switch, I decided
my fourth book would focus on my lighting for glamour photography.
While my extensive background in photography comes from being a pho-
tojournalist and traveling to almost forty countries in over thirty years of hold-
ing a camera, all of my photos—whether the subjects are beautiful models or
powerful dignitaries—have one thing in common: lighting. Lighting is the
lifeblood of an image. Without light, we have nothing.
The passion I have for photography excites me when I teach, as I love noth-
ing more than spreading the gospel of photography. Over the years, I captured
combat photography in the Army and recorded history-making events such as
the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 and the Rwandan refugee crisis in 1994. All
my assignments involved capturing the right moment at the right time. As a
photojournalist, you must learn to capture those moments in the existing light
or by adding light. When photographing NBA teams in action, I learned to
accept the light in my environment and capture the best image I could.
When I am creating glamour, beauty, and nude portraits, I often have more
control over the lighting. It’s a luxury compared to what I faced as a photo-
journalist on the go. I’ve become more spoiled, more picky in the lighting
equipment (or lack of equipment) I use. I’ve become more discriminating in
achieving the right lighting—whether that means using a top-of-the-line Bron-
color power pack or waiting for the “golden hour” of the sun to arrive. If any-INTRODUCTION 13