I remember how shocked Jen Bebb was the day she and her husband were named to American Photo’s list of 10 Best Wedding Photographers in the World. Seemingly out of nowhere Jen and Steve were catapulted to the top of our industry. They could have rested on their laurels, trumpeted their honor to clients, and run a very successful studio, but the Bebbs needed to push the envelope. To further their art, their studio became one of the earliest adopters of Fusion: the marriage of wedding photography and video.
In her new book Photo Fusion, Jen Bebb takes the Wedding Photographer by the hand on a well-conceived trip through the unfamiliar worlds of audio and video, carefully pointing out that Fusion is not videography. In her view, Fusion is photography enhanced.
When digital photography arrived, the vast majority of shooters were worried and fearful. Only accustomed to dropping-off film canisters at the lab, most shooters were hoping digital would be a passing fad, and that Photoshop would disappear along with it. Newer shooters might find it hard to believe, but 10 years ago , a photographer could run a studio without owning a computer. The similarities are obvious at the dawn of Fusion: Many professionals worry about having to learn video and audio. Jen eases the path to familiarity through 240 pages of this well-crafted book.
Wait. Did you know that you don’t even need video to create multimedia for your brides?
Jen begins the this 240 page journey with less daunting challenge of adding audio to a slideshow of photo stills. From there Photo Fusion moves quickly on a smooth trip through camera choices, software, and most important what you can do with them to create art that your clients will love.
Since this book focuses on photography enhanced by video, it makes perfect sense that it’s accompanied by a DVD in which Jen and Steve show examples of their Fusion work, and explain how they created it. And yes, the do break the fourth wall-giving you the opportunity to see them shoot.
3 Comments at "Photo Fusion: The Book"
I am currently reading this and find it to be an informative, straightforward book to get started with video fusion. I’ve found that most new books, websites and seminars devoted to creating video with DSLR’s tend to be too cinematic and grand in their scale. They seem to be primarily focusing on creating full movies with DSLR’s, not fusion for photographers.
Jen’s book OTOH, is exactly what a wedding photographer needs to get started. I home to implementing these systems in the next couple months myself!
Just a FYI, this book & Bob Davis’s new book are both on sale at Amazon right now. You can get both books for about the same price as 1!
[...] Jen Bebb’s recent Fusion book, Harrington and Co. ignore the picture taking abilities of the camera until the last chapter (which [...]
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