I have a new favorite photographer to add to my growing list: Mitchell Kanashkevich. Mitchell is a Belarusian/Australian photographer who has made great waves in travel and documentary photography in the past several years and has been on my radar for some time now as I followed his travels on his blog.
His photos and portraits are stunning, to say the least. But what garners my attention the most about him is his minimal use of equipment. The images he makes are so rich and inviting that I continually ask myself the photography fan’s ubiquitous question: “how does he do that?!?”
Well, today I found out as I was asked to review his latest ebook “Rabari: Encounters with the Nomadic Tribe” published by Light Stalking as part of their Inside Series To Travel Documentary Photography. I have to admit that at first, while honored in being asked to review the book, I wasn’t that excited. On the surface this looked like another “how to” book. A sort of “I went here and took these pictures and had an adventure you’ll be envious of” book. But this book is not like that.
Very early on Mitchell lists the equipment he used on this project and that made me sit up in my seat. Using only a Canon 400D (Rebel xti to US based folks), 3 prime lenses (50mm, 28mm, and 20mm) and a reflector, Mitchell reminded me of my other fave photog, Andrew S. Gibson, in the “less is more than plenty” category of photographers. Once I knew that I wanted to know how Mitchell could make such stunning images with wayyyyy less gear than I own.
Well, Mitchell is very generous with this information providing background information, his objectives, the light conditions and how he modified them (with only a reflector!!), his challenges, how and why he composed the images and posed his subjects, and the “what” and “why” of post processing for each of the 10 images.
As I read along I noticed I was beginning to anticipate Mitchell’s writing by correctly guessing what he was doing and why; a clear sign I was learning. This is, after all, why I am interested in these ebooks: to learn. And that learning, the lessons, were beginning to sink in as I progressed through the book.
At $24.95 this is a premium price for an ebook. But I have to say that at 59 pages you get decent value for the money. Add to this a $5 discount until Christmas and a money back guarantee and the value gets a bit better.
A word of warning, though. If you want to discover exactly how Mitchell post processes his images, this is not the book for you. Those descriptions are general. If, however, you want to know what he was trying to achieve while photographing his subjects, the challenges he encountered while doing so (from language issues, to cultural issues, to technical issues) then this book will be helpful. Some of the information is repetitive, but I think that is exactly what makes this book a good teaching tool-repetition is a key component of education.