The Shutterzone: Book Review: The Moment It Clicks by Joe McNally

The Moment It Clicks by Joe McNally would certainly win the Photo Book of the Year award if such an award were given, largely based solely on the hype that this book received. The book created a big buzz when it was released earlier this year, but I have only recently found time to read through it.

If anyone is qualified to write a "Been There, Done That" book on photography it would have to be Joe McNally. He has worked for Sports Illustrated, Time, National Geographic, and Life. Most notably, "from 1994 until 1998, he was Life magazine's staff photographer, the first one in 23 years".

In many ways the adventure story telling of Joe's book reminds me of one of the greatest photography books I have ever read, Life Photographers: What They Saw by John Loengard, former Life editor who interviewed all 88 photographers on the staff of Life magazine from 1933 until it ceased weekly publication in 1972. What they saw, first-hand, during their lifetimes from behind the camera was unbelievable.

Joe belongs in the same category.

The format of the Moment It Clicks is extremely simple. Every time you turn the page there is a photo on one side, and the story behind the image on the other. This is not the type of book where you will find detailed lighting diagrams and "follow these steps to carbon-copy this picture". Many of the write-ups do include a "How to Get This Type of Shot" box with a short paragraph describing what type of lighting equipment he used, where it was placed, the lens he used, etc. However, that level of detail is not the focus of this book. Rumor has it that his next book, The Hot Shoe Diaries: Creative Applications of Small Flashes (Voices That Matter), will have more of technical details.

That's not to say there is not plenty of great technical tutorial information in the book. It's there.

What really makes this book valuable though are the very intriguing stories, some quite hilarious, and the type of lessons gained through a lifetime of on assignment work. I'm not going to try to list them out here because you often have to read his whole story about a photo in order to really "get it". It's the stuff that is not so easily put into words and often not shared at all.

The thing that brings it all together though, besides the tremendous photography, is that Joe is a great speaker and story-teller and that talent comes through in the writing of the book. I could give this book to my mom and she would really enjoy it. She would gloss over all of the photo tech "mumbo jumbo", but the stories themselves would be interesting to almost anyone.

I've given the Moment It Clicks a ranking of five highlighters out of five in my system, because I will read this book cover-to-cover again. In fact, I could read it again in 5 years, 10 years, or 20 years and it would still be relevant.

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