The Color Red
7/52 {Red}
So this week’s theme for my personal photography project is “Red”. As I was searching my house for anything red, I stopped in front of my bookshelf and, lo and behold, I found some beautiful red gems! In fact, many of the books that have influenced me the greatest happen to have red covers! Oh, what happy luck!
These books pretty much sum me up too. Two books on lighting for photography, a French textbook, and two psychology related texts. That is my life and my passions in a nutshell!
Picture Perfect Lighting by Roberto Valenzuela
This man is an amazing photographer, teacher and human being. I happened across one of his classes on the amazing platform that is Creative Live, and have read/watched everything he’s done since. His explanations of both lighting and use of equipment opened the door for me as a photographer to be able to shoot in any scenario no matter the weather or time of day.
Light, Science and Magic by Fil Hunter, Steven Biver & Paul Fuqua
A must have reference in your library if you are a photographer. It covers just about everything light related. It is technical, but chock full of knowledge, and knowledge is power. If you want to learn lighting, study this book.
French for Fluency by Valette & Valette– one of my high school text books
You may not know this about me, but I took four years of French in high school under the tutelage of Madame Burkhart, a tiny yet mighty French woman who, to my amazing luck, found herself teaching French in a very German small town in Texas. I graduated early from high school, and because of her, tested out of the first two years of college level French at Texas State University where I earned a Bachelor’s degree in French (and in Psychology).
True Nature and Great Misunderstandings by John Breeding
Written by one of my Psychology professors in college. His work with children diagnosed with ADHD (among other labels) focused on finding solutions that did not rely solely on medication. He opened my eyes to looking at children in a different light… Making the radical claim that children should be treated with the same respect and worthiness as any adult because they are human. His class greatly affected me and put me on a path of seeking to understand, help and work with children with difficult behaviors. Which I did for a long time as a caseworker, parent coach and advocate. And now as a parent.
Raising Cain by Dan Kindlon, PhD & Michael Thompson, PhD
Everyone, and I mean everyone, should read this book. Whether you are a parent or not, and whether you are male or not. This book is absolutely necessary to understanding what is going wrong with our society and what we can do to start making it better. It is the other side of feminism that rarely gets talked about. And that is how we treat and raise our male children. You cannot expect there to be equality and a balance between the sexes when as a society we essentially give the message to our baby boys that they’d better toughen up and suppress emotion if they want to be loved and accepted. Read it. And then tell everyone you know to read it.
(I don’t happen to own a copy and the cover is not red, but an equally important book is Reviving Ophelia, which focuses on our female children’s needs.)