I’m always buying photography books and on the lookout for good DVDs.\u00a0 I like the books because I can read them at my leisure.\u00a0 And if they contain assignments at the end of each chapter that’s even better.\u00a0 DVDs, on the other hand, can be even better because you can see the photographer in action.<\/p>\n
But not all DVDs live up to this level of expectation.\u00a0 Sure, you can get see where the photographers are photographing.\u00a0 And often you can see what they captured.\u00a0 But all too often you aren’t privy to what is going through their minds.\u00a0 Well, I found a DVD that sets the standard.<\/p>\n
Tony Sweet is nationally recognized photographer known for his fine art nature and flower photographs.\u00a0 Tony’s images are surreal, impressionistic and speak directly to your soul.\u00a0 They are spontaneous, with a simplicity and clarity that approaches perfection.<\/p>\n
In addition to three great books he has produced a 2 DVD set – the “Visual Literacy” instructional DVD.\u00a0 There is over four hours of fascinating insight into his photographic technique.\u00a0 Disk 1 is “In the Field”; disk 2 is “In the Studio.”\u00a0 I was enthralled with “In the Field” and watched\u00a0all two hours of it from start to finish –\u00a0twice.\u00a0 The wealth of invaluable techniques took me a bit by surprise during the first viewing so the second time through I took notes – three pages worth, all bullets.<\/p>\n
Tony talks the whole time.\u00a0 He’s describing what he is seeing and what he’s thinking.\u00a0 He doesn’t hold anything back.\u00a0 You become a part of the creative process from the\u00a0pre-visualization\u00a0through the technical decisions and ending with the final result.\u00a0 You are with him as he plays with different techniques that result in totally different moods for the same subject.\u00a0 And you are infected with his enthusiasm for and total abandon in his work.\u00a0 (It doesn’t feel right to call what he does ‘work.’)<\/p>\n
The DVD is divided into different segments, each of which introduces one or more techniques.\u00a0 Some are along the lines of what you might consider conventional landscape photography (although nothing is conventional about Tony’s work).\u00a0 Other techniques are really far out – and very powerful.<\/p>\n
I’ve just started playing around with some of Tony’s techniques and must confess I love it.\u00a0 And ‘playing around’ is definitely the correct term.\u00a0 Initially I thought they were too far out for me but once I tried it I experienced the exhilaration of letting go and having pure, simple fun.\u00a0 I was a kid again, a good place to be when trying to be creative.<\/p>\n
So I enthusiastically recommend “Visual Literacy.”\u00a0 You can find it on his website along with his photographs, books, cards and other goodies –\u00a0http:\/\/tonysweet.com<\/a>.\u00a0 As for me, I’ll be out there playing around, getting more far out and having a ball!<\/p>\n (951)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" I’m always buying photography books and on the lookout for good DVDs.\u00a0 I like the books because I can read them at my leisure.\u00a0 And if they contain assignments at the end of each chapter that’s even better.\u00a0 DVDs, on the other hand, can be even better because you can see the photographer in action. … Continue reading “Great Training DVD”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[3,5],"tags":[76,201,203,202,180],"class_list":["post-317","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-articles","category-photography-as-art","tag-fine-art-photography","tag-impressionistic","tag-nature-photography","tag-surreal","tag-tony-sweet"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p9Nl7-57","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ralphnordstromphotography.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/317","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ralphnordstromphotography.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ralphnordstromphotography.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ralphnordstromphotography.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ralphnordstromphotography.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=317"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/ralphnordstromphotography.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/317\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":320,"href":"https:\/\/ralphnordstromphotography.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/317\/revisions\/320"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ralphnordstromphotography.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=317"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ralphnordstromphotography.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=317"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ralphnordstromphotography.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=317"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}