Naturally Modern Portraiture

Recently Jack Hollingsworth mentioned he was looking for people to review his new DVD, Naturally Modern Portraiture. Knowing Jack from his Twitter presence as @photojack, and knowing that he's good with tips and education, I thought it would be worth looking at. The DVD arrived when I was in Scotland, and I've only just managed to get a look at it.PackagingMy first impression of the DVD is that the packaging is good, enticing you to get a look inside. The product isn't mass produced, but this is very common with DVD's currently. It's hard to know if something will take off and be worth an investment in large cycle production, so this was expected. Despite this, it still looked great.ContentThe title sequence allows you to play all, or go with lesson selection. There's 2 pages of lessons, each with 8 lessons, making for 80 minutes of teaching.This course is entirely based on the use of natural light in portraiture, but covers more than that, including using a team and gear choices. It's roughly split into sections 'Natural', 'Modern' and 'Portraiture', although I don't feel a need for this distinction. The DVD kicks off using raw, unmodified, sunlight. This is one of the sample chapters, so check it out. He introduces the concepts of front, side and back lighting, explaining how to use each to your advantage. The chapter finishes with the final image selection after post processing. The chapters that deal with technique tend to take this approach, discuss a topic, shoot with the technique, and allow us to see the results.The next chapter deals with modifying the light, using both natural and artificial means. It covers the various reflectors from scrims, to white, silver, gold and soft gold, showing examples of each. As well as the material being thought, I felt that other things are coming through subliminally, such as Jack's interaction with the subject, and how he's actually shooting.The disk carries on covering using your environment, by having backgrounds, or backdrops (another sample chapter). With this section and the previous, there's a little bit of product placement going on. I don't mind as the products are top quality, but there are other options too, which I would probably mention myself if I was doing something similar. I have to say Jack does have a very natural way of teaching and his easy going style helps the learning process. A bit like a kind uncle, helping you along. Rather than going into intricate detail and have this post go on forever, I just fly through the rest of the disk. Jack covers getting emotion from the subject, in a way I've not seen before, and is something I will use myself. From there we get a discussion on the use of colour in images, followed by the use of props and being a concept photographer.Makeup, hair and wardrobe styling gets a significant mention. I'm glad too because these make a massive difference to your shoot. Jack discusses this with his team, and they each talk about what they bring to the shoot, and tips about what works. We discover that Jack's stylist is his wife.. handy! He point here is valid and there's good tips from the team.There's still a few chapters left, but we're now into the penultimate section. Here the DVD covers Storytelling in your shots, with examples and advice on why to tell a story, techniques while shooting, composition, the eyes (again a sample chapter), and some general portraiture settings. There's a lot of detail in these with really valuable, hard won, tips. I should mention the good advice on model releases too. The DVD wraps up with Jack discussing gear that he uses. To him they're just tools, but he does detail his preferences.OpinionThat's the content covered, and I've mentioned the delivery being good, so now let's get into the nitty gritty. I feel this DVD aims into the heart of the beginner to intermediate photographer, with good coverage of everything you need to learn about natural light portraiture. While a lot of the material can be found online, having everything together in one place is a boon, especially with the relaxed teaching style. A more advanced photographer would already know the material covered though.Not everything is rosy. While the content is good, there are a few production issues. There are occasional microphone glitches, which I especially notice coming from a sound engineering background, and the background music drowns out the voice in some segments. Some sections have additional bits added on, almost as afterthoughts, which I felt could've been edited in better. While we do get to see final edited images in the video, I wish Jack had spoken a little about his processing choices. So how would I rate this? For a beginner, there's excellent information in this to kick start your people photography, and I'd recommend it highly. For more intermediate photographers, learning about a team is essential, and the techniques section has good stuff to help make your shoot flow better. Some sections might be a bit basic for you though. So for beginners, I'd give this 4 stars, but more like 3-3.5 for more intermediate users. At $39, you'd be hard pushed to get the value spent collecting this information together, so well worth it, despite my production quibbles.