When it comes to photography, it's all about the light.

After spending more than thirty years behind the lens-working for National Geographic, Time, Life, and Sports Illustrated-Joe McNally knows about light. He knows how to talk about it, shape it, color it, control it, and direct it. Most importantly, he knows how to create it...using small hot shoe flashes.

In The Hot Shoe Diaries, Joe brings you behind the scenes to candidly share his lighting solutions for a ton of great images. Using Nikon Speedlights, Joe lets you in on his uncensored thought process-often funny, sometimes serious, always fascinating-to demonstrate how he makes his pictures with these small flashes. Whether he's photographing a gymnast on the Great Wall, an alligator in a swamp, or a fire truck careening through Times Square, Joe uses these flashes to create great light that makes his pictures sing.

Table of Contents:

Part I Nuts 'n' Bolts

• What I Use.and Why and When I Use It
• A Little Bit of Dis and a Little Bit of Dat
• Da Grip

Part II One Light!

• A Place to Put the Light
• Up to Your Ass in Alligators
• Good Bad Light
• A Light in the Doorway
• The Swamp, Revisited
• Tune in to Station "i-TT L"
• Up on the Roof
• How to Light a Fence
• Cheap Arena Lighting
• Make the Sunrise
• Light as a Feather
• Father Pre-Flash
• The "Killer Flick of Light"
• How to Light an Elf
• Make the Available Light Unavailable
• Put Stuff in Front of Your Lights
• Dad!
• 80 Plus 20 Equals Good Light
• Lacey Light
• Strobe Strategy
• Smoke and Windows
• Hakeem the Dream
• FP Means Good DOF
• Flash in Real Life
• Light `Em Dano!
• It Don't Gotta Be Human to Light It
• The Lady with the Light in the Lake
• One Light in the Parking Lot
• One Light in the Window
• One Light in the Garden

Part III Two or More

• Show the Tattoo! Or, The Remarkable Rehabilitation
• of the Notorious Bubbles
• Gellin'
• Quick Rigs for 30-Second Portraiture
• Do You Have a Bedsheet?
• Window Light Is a Beautiful Thing
• Smooth Light
• When in Venice
• Dancer in the Ruins
• It's Right There on Paper
• Shadow Man
• Faces in the Forest
• Dynamic Dancing
• Gettin' Fancy
• This One Goes to Eleven
• Some Light Conversation
• Groups!
• Lighting Kit for the Creepy-Guy-in-the-Alley Shot
• Let There Be Light!

Part IV Lotsa Lights

• How to Give Birth to a Speedlight
• A Great Wall of Light
• Northern Light
• The Tree of Woe
• How to Build a Backyard Studio
• Don't Light It, Light Around It
• Goin' Glam and Throwin' Sparks
• And Now for Something Completely Different
• Beach Light
• Plane, But Not Simple
• Rollin' with Pride of Midtown
• Appendix: What's This Button Do?
• Index