I haven’t been taking as many photographs as I would like recently. One thing I have managed to find some time for is some new photography books. Several of the photography blogs that I read have been talking up Joe McNally’s book “The Moment It Clicks”. McNally is a very accomplished magazine photographer, and the book is an accumulation of his experience in 30 years of shooting. There are over 100 little section in the book. Each section begins with a short quote/quip, and is accompanied by a full page photograph along with a full page explanation of the lesson, and often times an explanation of exemplar photograph.

Several other reviewers, including David Hobby, reported getting the book and then staying up way too late reading it cover to cover. I was sorely tempted to, but there was just too much information to do that. There’s an enormous amount of content and when I finished I was grateful for all the experience that I had just run by my eyeballs and brain. This is a book for working shooters, and if you don’t put the stuff to work, you won’t really get the value out of the book. The challenge for me, and I suspect many others, will be translating these short pithy lessons into a part of our regular photographic practice. Since we’re reading a condensation of 30 years of Joe McNally’s life, there’s no telling how long that will take. But at least now we have something that we can turn to periodically to remind us.

Even better, McNally has started a blog that picks up where the book left off.

Blog: subscribed. Book: highly recommended.