Trick Photography and Special Effects Book Review

Have you ever wanted to take photos of things that aren’t really there? Structures that defy the laws of nature, or the `invisible man`, where you only see his clothes? How about painting with light to make beautiful designs and structures that are only limited by your imagination. Or ‘Multiplicity photography’ where your subject appears in the same image multiple times.

Trick Photography and Special Effects is a fascinating eBook by Evan Sharboneau, a young photographer who has developed an amazing talent for capturing just that. Truly unique images that you don’t normally see. Read my review below.

Evan’s Trick Photography and Special Effects eBook is packed full of great techniques for those who are interested in learning how to create a multitude of illusions and effects, using your camera, light sources, and Photoshop. If you didn’t review Evan’s site after my last email, then keep reading here to see what it’s all about and why you should consider it.


So what is Evan’s Trick Photography & Special Effects eBook about?

Evan’s eBook is an photography eBook that focuses on creating special effects and optical illusions with your camera. Evan created the guide with both beginners and advanced photographers in mind. The beginning of the book reviews the basics that novices should learn – from camera bodies to apertures, and tripods to white balance. It is not a comprehensive guide on the basics for beginners, but he covers just enough for beginners to be able to effectively use the concepts in the other sections. Most of the eBook is dedicated to the cool tricks and effects that people would want it for.

Evan’s main eBook, Trick Photography and Special Effects, isn’t a tiny little manual you often see sold online. It’s a decent size with over 297 pages of instruction. Most of the content is focused on the tools and the techniques to create the effects that you see throughout the eBook (Evan provides lots of examples for all the tricks). The book is broken into the following sections:

• Preliminaries: This section is built for beginners, and contains basic information on camera bodies, lenses, tripods, and Photoshop. If you are relatively new to photography, this is a worthwhile section to read. Advanced users can skip it.

Module 1 – Long Exposure Effects and Light Painting: This section is getting into the meat of the book. While the first seven pages or so describes the basics of exposure and white balance, the next 80+ pages is an in-depth guide to light painting. He covers in detail how to use your camera settings, what types of light source you can use, and has numerous examples of what great light painting looks like. The final part of the chapter focuses on a host of other exposure based techniques such as motion blur, star trails, and other effects.

Module 2 – Trick Photography and Special Effects: This section is over 95 pages and starts off describing an array of `in-camera` perspective based illusions which you can do right away, as well as some which may require some more computer based processing. While looking at many of his examples, it became clear to me that anyone can take advantage of their local environment to create some interesting photographs, such as inverting perspectives and using natural reflections. There are several other topics like the Droste effect, HDR photography, 3D effects, and smoke effects, to name a few.

Module 3 – Photoshop: The last section on Photoshop and provides several walkthroughs for different effects to create, from the illusion of levitation to making some invisible.

9 Hours of Video Tutorials

Here’s the real kicker for me, Trick Photography and Special Effects includes over 9 hours of video tutorials and guides to help you see how many of these tricks and special effects are done. I really appreciated being able to see Evan show me how he creates his trick photos.


Additionally, Evan provides additional bonus material, most of which is better suited for newer photographers, in the form four of eBooks. The books cover the following topics:

• Core Photography Fundamentals: this a slightly more detailed version of the basics covered in his main eBook. Good for beginners, but not needed for advanced photographers. If you’ve been reading my tips for a while, you can skip this one.
• Introduction to External Flash: a section on the core points for on-camera flash, external flash, and reflectors. If you are new to flash, then this is a good read.
• Filters for Lenses and Plug-Ins for Photoshop: a nice little section on the different types of filters, plus an overview of some of Evan’s favorite Photoshop plugins and HDR processors.
• How to Make Money with Photography: in this section Evan covers a few options for you to make money from your photography (such as selling stock photography).
• In total Evan is offering 5 eBooks and 9 hours of video.

Is Trick Photography and Special Effects For You?

If you’ve ever wanted to dabble in special effects photography, learn about light painting, or use Photoshop to trick up your images, this ebook and videos are perfect.

However, to take full advantage of the tricks, you really need a DSLR camera. Point and Shoot cameras can take some trick images, but because most lack the more advanced settings required (like bulb mode), you might find you’re frustrated that you can’t take the shot you want.

Also, if you are interested in photography that deals in natural light, developing good composition, and taking traditional photographs, then this is for you.

Visit Trick Photography and Special Effects now and get your copy today. And there is a full money back guarantee, so you don’t have any risk.

Yours in Photography,
Dave.

If you haven’t already clicked through to take a look at Evan’s site, I recommend you do. He’s got a fantastic introduction video that even shows how he does some of his tricks.