This is a MUST-HAVE book if you take photography seriously. There is so much that goes into taking a photograph and getting the right lighting equipment to make a shot look the way it does. This book is amazing. It is a huge hard-back book filled with pages of classy nude photographs and implied nude shots that are taken from many different angles, backdrops, and with various types of lighting: both outdoors and indoors.

There are diagrams for the photos to show just exactly where the lighting was placed (and what type of light) to achieve the affect. Most of the male nude photos are monochrome and although it said "male nude" - there isn't a nude penis shot which I thought was kind of odd. I had kind of hoped to see more in the male category. Shooting a guy in blue jean shorts isn't exactly a male nude shot. However there was excellent light detail described on the torso with the highlights and shadows.

My only real complaint is that there are some excellent diagrams that seem great but the author neglected to show the correlating photograph that went with it. There are maybe 10-20 like this. But the rest of the diagrams have photos. So the good outweighs the bad.

One thing I love, which deserves five stars just for this: the entire book is designed so that someone WITHOUT a digital camera can achieve these effects. I LOVE digital and rely on it completely. But this book shows how you can get these amazing effects with a simple 35mm as well.

Overall, the rest of the reviews are right. The photos are classy, the quality is superior, excellent source of information. I wish there was just a tad more versatility when it came to other angles or expressions. But for the mood this book went to capture, I think the author did an amazing job.

I highly recommend it.

There is a reason this book is so cheap. I am going to say the other book from Rotovision "photographing people; portraits, fashion, glamour" is a much better book overall. This book has fairly tame nudes, and is missing one or two images it has diagrams for, most notably 'marie' on page 43. It is really boring and there are enough ringflash shots that by the time you see the 4th one, you are ready to tear those pages out.

It lacks creativity, and the set ups are often duplicated with a different model and different photographer form a slight change in angle, so you have loads of filler. Probably a good book if you are a guy with a camera looking to be taking nudes and replicating stale images.

The manipulation pages are a waste, they tell you nothing and there are only a few of them.

Has a great variety of lighting situations from natural light to as many as 9 lights, most commonly 2-4. Shows use of reflectors, absorbers, soft boxes, backgrounds. Talks at the beginning of each chapter about the mood associated with each type of picture and then theorizes different means of attaining that mood. Each shot has easy to read plan and isometric diagrams of the shoot setup, and the pictures are full page and first rate. I wish all photo books were like this one! Now if only they could supply me with a source of willing models....

Beautiful, a lot of photograps with diagrams, is worth the money I spent.
But you need to have a basic understanding of light, light manipulation and photography to take maximum advantage of this book.

This is one of those books that you'll never regret to buy. If you know the basics of photography such as how cameras and lighting work, this book is a real mind-candy to read. My tip for you using this book is to follow each session by putting yoursellf into a photographer's position who took the pictures in the book, and execute your own virtual session applying your own photographic knowledge. This will surely invoke your creativity like no other. This book won't tell you any super special secret than other books. But each case study is highly practical and honest. This giant collection of real world case studies will satisfy anybody interested in nude and studio photography.