Best Wedding Photography

In Picture Perfect Practice, photographer Roberto Valenzuela breaks down the craft of photography into three key elements–locations, poses, and execution–that you can use to unlock the photographic opportunities lying beneath every challenging situation. If you’ve been frustrated and overwhelmed by the challenges of real-world locations, posing your subjects, or executing a great image–or if you simply want to become a better shooter but don’t know where to start– Picture Perfect Practice gives you the tools and information you need to finally become the kind of photographer you’ve always wanted to be: the kind who can confidently walk into any location, under any lighting condition, with any subject, and know that you can create astonishing photographs that have a timeless impact. Roberto Valenzuela is a Beverly Hills-based photographer, specializing in wedding photography.

Fine art wedding images are more graphic and stylized than traditional wedding photojournalism, as if they were pulled from the pages of a glossy wedding or lifestyle magazine. Jose Villa has been named one of the top 10 wedding photographers in the world by American PHOTO, one of the “hottest young photographers in today’s wedding industry” by Rangefinder , and among the “most inspirational wedding photographers in today’s industry” by Photo District News.

Planning a wedding can be a bit overwhelming, but with the helpful how-tos and insider advice in this handy guide, you can forget the stress and focus on creating a day that truly reflects you as a couple. Kellee Khalil is the founder and CEO of the popular wedding website, Lover.ly. , which she launched in 2012.

Now an instant #1 New York Times bestseller, Humans of New York began in the summer of 2010, when photographer Brandon Stanton set out to create a photographic census of New York City. The Top 5 Humans of New York Brandon Stanton's thousands of not-quite-candid street portraits of New Yorkers (and accompanying captions, usually from the subjects themselves) have made his Humans of New York blog both poignant and extremely popular--as well as garnering him recognition as one of Time magazine's "30 People Under 30 Changing the World." This book of the same title collects 400 of his best portraits, telling small stories that are outsized in their humor, candor, and humanity. Normally I'm a bit downtrodden if I'm unable to interview a subject, but I thought her 'brush-off' was the perfect complement to the photo. I found these kids in the Lower East Side, making the most of a hot summer day. But his shyness ended up coming through beautifully, creating a portrait of the relationship between mother and son.

A battered town left for dead, one that almost a million people abandoned and where those who remained had to live behind triple deadbolt locks, was reinvigorated by the twinned energies of starving artists and financial white knights. Covering culture high and low, the drama and scandal of politics and finance, through jubilant moments and immense tragedies, the magazine has hit readers where they live, with a sensibility as fast and funny and urbane as New York itself. From its early days publishing writers like Tom Wolfe, Jimmy Breslin, and Gloria Steinem to its modern incarnation as a laboratory of inventive magazine-making, New York has had an extraordinary knack for catching the Zeitgeist and getting it on the page. It was among the originators of the New Journalism, publishing legendary stories whose authors infiltrated a Black Panther party in Leonard Bernstein’s apartment, introduced us to the mother-daughter hermits living in the dilapidated estate known as Grey Gardens, launched Ms. Magazine, branded a group of up-and-coming teen stars “the Brat Pack,” and effectively ended the career of Roger Ailes. “When New York magazine began in 1968, it was unique: a brash conglomeration of ingenious writers, editors, and graphic designers who generated narrative journalism that was so classic it became new again. Highbrow, Lowbrow, Brilliant, Despicable: 50 Years of New York encapsulates those five convulsive decades in lavish illustrations, vivid oral histories, and evocative recreations by, among others, Tom Wolfe, Jimmy Breslin, Nora Ephron, Nicholas Pileggi, Julie Baumgold and Gael Greene from the magazine’s more than 2,300 issues.” —Sam Roberts, The New York Times. “A delicious compendium of the magazine’s coverage from the half-century of its existence, this is the kind of book that incites nostalgia even for the moments you didn’t live though (there’s the original Tom Wolfe “Radical Chic” cover!). The editors reproduce material that speaks not just to passing moments and fashions, but also to constant editorial emphases, such as high-quality artwork and portraiture.

Based on the hit website, AwkwardFamilyPhotos.com (“painful, regrettable, horrifyingly awesome snaps of family bonding, you will laugh so hard that people in adjoining offices will ask what’s wrong with you”— Esquire ), this full color book features never-before-seen photos and hilarious personal stories covering everything from uncomfortable moments with relatives, teen angst, sibling rivalry, and family vacations from hell.