Reddit mentions of Gregory Heisler: 50 Portraits: Stories and Techniques from a Photographer's Photographer

Adding links...

• Greg Heisler - 50 Portraits
  
• Dan Winters - America: Icons and Ingenuity [examples]
  
• Trent Parke - Minutes to Midnight [examples]
  
• Brian Griffin - Books on Amazon [examples]

1. I had assumed that his expression was meaningful to you as someone who knew him, even if it was pretty bland for those of us on the outside. There is NOTHING wrong with this. This may become the most dear picture of the man to his family, even if not to outside sources, and that's perfectly fine and absolutely justifies the photograph on a personal level. But... of course... that doesn't mean you'll be winning any juried awards for it (I say this mostly with a smile and don't mean it to sound dickish at all. Truly, a photograph that holds great meaning for a family is a noble thing, and most of the time, that's all we hope to accomplish anyway. The jury piece was more a nod to more objective, peer-reviewed compositional elements).
   
   
2. This expression is not bad, objectively. It just isn't served by the photo. Again, him sitting at a graveside or in the middle of traffic? Brilliant expression because the contrast and focus is immediately clear. But in this photo, his gaze is just "down" along with all the other visual elements in the photo. There's not enough contrast (and contrast can come from light/dark, direction/geometry, expression, humor, size, etc---to an artist, ANYTHING can be used, and anything can succeed or fail in the right context).
   
   
3. But just as an example, what if I took out all the competing elements here and just highlighted your uncle? Now his expression moves from being mushy, and lacking contrast with the elements in the photograph, to taking on supreme importance. Now the contrast of the light/dark elements, and the thoughts he may be having, take center stage and the photograph takes on a very interesting character. This isn't because your UNCLE changed at all, but rather, it's about what you chose to both include, or exclude, as the artist behind it. http://i.imgur.com/wCutrC6.jpg This photograph, to me, is much more interesting because the subject is clear, and is clearly isolated against his background. Now I can reflect on his thoughts and feelings and interpret the solitude in the photograph for myself.
   
   
4. So if this works, then why not just black out every background and shoot someone alone every time? Because if we add background elements, the STORY of the photograph changes. It becomes more complex, but it also can take on greater power and meaning. The previous edit of the image had a SENSE OF PLACE, and this one does not. BUT, we must take notice that every element we include either obscures, or serves, the dominant theme in the photograph. In this case the image took on greater meaning because it simplified a bunch of mushy compositional elements and it highlighted the thing YOU saw the most (you know your uncle, and you know his gestures/expressions, so you saw much more than we did). But when we're talking about more general photography, we want to ORGANIZE the elements in the frame to serve the central theme and photograph. And this requires a sense of art--the selection among many possible options in order to create a desired effect.
   
   
5. If you're looking for a book to study on portraiture, I recommend Heisler's "50 Portraits" book. I don't like every portrait in the book, but he does a superb job of laying bare his thinking and methodology. Yes, there's probably some mythology or "after the fact" thinking in his work, but it's still interesting (especially his explanation, and photograph, of his Muhammad Ali photo). http://www.amazon.com/Gregory-Heisler-Techniques-Photographers-Photographer/dp/0823085651 . However, if you want to dig more into objective compositional/artistic concepts, I recommend the blog series from "The Canon of Design" and the Myron Barnstone studios trainings.

My favorite educational book on photography is probably "The Art of Photography: An Approach to Personal Expression" by Bruce Barnbaum.

My favorite book on portraiture is "50 Portraits" by Gregory Heisler and for landscapes it's "Treasured Lands" by Q.T. Luong.

David DuChemin's books would probably get my vote. Within the Frame, VisionMongers, etc.

Also a fan of Steve McCurry's Untold and Gregory Heisler's 50 Portraits (watch the video with it too!)