“If your pictures aren’t good enough, you aren’t close enough.”
- Robert Capa

UP CLOSE, the latest ebook out of Craft & Vision comes from Andrew S. Gibson and it’s packed. This is a really beefy ebook that combines the artistic and technical in a way that few of our books have done. In fact it’s worth the $5 just for the gorgeous case studies at the back of the book, but there’s so much more in here. If you’ve ever been inclined to look a little closer at the world around you, there’s a mountain of good information and technique in here, and some stuff I didn’t even know existed. You don’t need to spend a ton of money on expensive macro lenses to do it, though you can and the case studies at the back now have me jonesin’ for a 60mm macro lens. If you’ve never given close-up photography a consideration, this might give you second thoughts. There’s some gorgeous stuff in here, and the knowledge to start exploring the world a little closer on your own. Not that the number of pages matter, but it’s 90 pages long, which would have been 180 pages if we still did things the way we once did.

Andrew covers crop factor, magnification, focus, and sharpness, and gives an extensive discussion of lenses, and lighting, all with clear, beautiful images and illustrations, before sharing the very different, but equally inspiring, work of Mandy Disher and Celine Steen.

If the world around you isn’t inspiring you, perhaps it’s time to get closer. Much, much closer. You’ll find light, lines, and moments there that you’ve never seen before.

For the next six days use the promotional code CLOSE4 when you checkout so you can have the PDF version of Up Close for only $4 OR use the code CLOSE20 to get 20% off when you buy 5+ PDF eBooks from the Craft & Vision collection. These codes expire at 11:59pm (PST) June 24, 2012.