Free lighting e-book

Garry Edwards

Garry Edwards

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Garry Edwards
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As per the title, this is my new e-book, Lighting Magic.

Copies are available free to TP members

You’ve guessed it, it’s about using and creating light. The book, which runs for 263 A4 pages (or a lot more Kindle pages), has been created mainly by me and with valuable contributions from other photographers, including @Michael Sewell and @Scooter, both of whom are members here.

Years ago, I created a whole series of e-books on lighting and they sold like hot cakes, but then the Internet changed things and people stopped buying information, believing that they could get everything they needed for free. That isn’t true of course, we all know that although there is some good stuff out there on the net, most of the free tutorials and videos are either deliberately deceptive and misleading rubbish designed to sell overpriced junk lighting accessories via “celebrity photographers” many of whom are best known for their selling skills, or are teasers designed to sell expensive video training courses.

In my own small way I’m trying to fight back against this by producing something based on real knowledge, real experience and real – i.e. not Photoshop faked - lighting. With luck, this book will be around for years after I’ve gone, and will provide a useful resource to new generations of photographers. Photography has been very good to me, it’s time to give something back.

Lighting Magic has just gone on sale on Amazon, priced at £4.99. All proceeds are going to All For Horses, www.allforhorses.org.uk a small horse rescue and re-homing charity that I support. I spend a lot of time volunteering there, doing mainly labouring and driving jobs, hopefully the income from the book will carry on being useful when I no longer am.

Regardless of whether it’s any good or not, Lighting Magic has to compete with a lot of other e-books on Amazon and it will only sell if we can get it right up there in the visibility list, and the best way of doing that is for a lot of people to post helpful, detailed reviews about it on Amazon.

Which is where we need your help – please read the book, and then help us to make it more visible on Amazon by writing as detailed and as useful a review as you can. Obviously it will help a lot if your review is positive but all reviews help.
This is the Amazon buying page, and you'll see where to click to post your review

This offer will end at 12 noon on Sunday 30th December - I feel that this gives plenty of time for active members of this forum to have requested a copy.

However, I will be at the farm from Monday 17th December and don't plan to return until Saturday 29th December, and because I'll be busy there and because the internet there is very poor (on a good day) I won't be able to respond to these requests until I'm back - don't think that you've been forgotten.

I will start work on editing the 2nd edition in the new year, and a copy of the new version will be then be sent to everyone who has left a review on Amazon. As the whole point of giving away the free copies is to gain Amazon reviews in return, I don't think that it is unreasonable to restrict copies of the latest version to those people who have helped in this way.

Please drop me a PM with your email address and I'll email it to you.

And finally, my thanks to @Marcel for his permission to start this thread.
 
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Do I need to open a dropbox account?
 
It's asking me to sign in or register?
 
Graham W said:
Thanks for that. Just made a donation to www.allforhorses.org.uk I'll download the book later...Dropbox is playing silly buggers.
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Many thanks.
admirable said:
It's asking me to sign in or register?
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I'll try to sort out the potential Dropbox problem, which shouldn't exist.
Meanwhile, anyone who can't download it via Dropbox, please drop me a PM with your email address and I'll email it to you.
 
Getting a message saying the sample folder doesn't exist
 
Sorry about that, the 'help' section on Dropbox doesn't seem to help, I've got on to them via email, hopefully it can be sorted out.
For anyone else having problems (which seems to be anyone who doesn't have Dropbox) please drop me a PM with your email address and I'll email it to you.
 
1EA66162-58B6-47E0-9A5F-6C8895D08B33.jpeg Hi, I do have a Dropbox account but just get this
 
scott199 said:
View attachment 139893 Hi, I do have a Dropbox account but just get this
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Weird. I've now edited my original post, will everyone please just PM me with your email address. Several people have already done so, it's a method that's known to work.

Obviously, your email address will ONLY be used for this purpose.
 
Received, thank you, I’ll have a read and do the amazon thing (y)
 
Thank you so much. I’ll review on amazon once I’ve had a chance to read it.
 
It's very kind of you to be giving away your ebook for free to the members of TP.
 
Received by email many thanks indeed
 
Thanks, email received and downloaded :)

I started to read to read it last night and will carry on as time allows,...........and leave a review asap.
 
Also received - many thanks Gary. A little 'light' reading over Xmas I fancy!! :whistle:
 
Thanks Gary for sending through my copy, will study it over the weekend.
 
Nostromo said:
It's very kind of you to be giving away your ebook for free to the members of TP.
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Not really, it's simply marketing.
By giving a few copies away, it's getting seen and read, and if enough people post reviews on Amazon (but only one member has actually done so, so far) then it will become much more visible on Amazon, which should help sales. Right now, it's languishing so far down the list that nobody will find it unless they use the specific keywords.

At the same time, if giving copies away also helps some people, then this has to be a good thing too.

I've had several emails about what we actually do at the charity, so if you're interested, here goes. . .

The charity started back in 1987 and became a registered charity in 1990. We were a group of people who at that time were running a local RSPCA branch, but we had irreconcilable policy differences with the RSPCA so we broke away and formed our own charity. Nobody else was stupid enough to become the Chair, so I got that job. I'm the last of the orignial trustees.

We take in horses and ponies that have had a hard time, we re-train them and then find new homes for them.

We have a strict no kill policy, which means that unlike most charities, it doesn’t matter how much it costs and how long it takes to get them rehabilitated and to find them a new home, we’ll stick at it and never take the easy option. Typically, we put them with the herd for about a year to settle down, and then start on the rehabilitation. Small herds in big fields, where they can socialise and regain their confidence, but have plenty of room to be on their own if they want to.

Some of the horses are cruelty cases, others have been neglected, usually by well-meaning owners who know far less about the care needs of horses than they need to. Other horses have lost their owners through death or other circumstances. We are not a sanctuary, we only take horses that have a future and that we believe we can re-home.

We have one Trustee, who works there (very) full time, another who works there part time, and I’m there part time. I basically do labouring and driving jobs, because I can tow heavy trailers, which is part of the daily grind. My son does all the vehicle and machine maintenance and most of the tractoring work. We also normally have “Workaways” – mainly foreign students who work 25 hours per week for a few weeks in exchange for food and basic accommodation, numbers vary from 0 to 6. And there are 2 employees, only the employees get paid.

We get some money from donations but nowhere near enough, and make most of the money needed from buying and selling various things.

It probably costs around £3000 per horse, assuming that we don't end up with any unplanned vet bills, but of course we sometimes do.

A few weeks ago, SWIMBO and myself were off on a buying trip, 5 hours away when she got a call from our main employee, who is a highly qualified riding instructor and a real expert. A horse, Ollie, was very sick with colic. A few years ago, colic was a no-hoper but with a lot of work and expert specialist veterinary care, it’s now worth trying. We told her to call the emergency vet. She rang back a few minutes later, the vet was on her way but over 40 miles away, with the last 18 miles on unlit single track roads, and Ollie was in so much pain that she wasn’t sure that it was right to make him suffer until the vet got there. There was nothing that I could personally do but a neighbouring farmer said that he could be there in 10 minutes if needed, to save the horse from pain.

The vet arrived and we stood down the farmer. She treated Ollie and eased his pain. A mixture of her skill and good luck meant that he didn't need to be taken to the veterinary hospital for major surgery. it was now down to exercise, because he needed to be walked continually because exercise is the only hope. Our employee had been due to go off shift at 5 p.m. but stayed until she was happy that Ollie didn’t need her. Our only workaway had gone off shift at 1 p.m. but when we arrived back, just after 10 p.m., she was still walking him round and round a field in the pouring rain. I offered to take over but she said that she was fine. SWIMBO took over from her at midnight and they alternated, one hour on and one hour off, until 10 a.m., by which time Ollie was almost back to normal, after that it was just 15 minutes of exercise per hour for the rest of the day.

A happy ending, apart from the £1200 vet bill. It’s a hard life, but with people of that quality, we can’t go wrong!

Here’s Ollie, a few days later, enjoying life again. This photo has zero merit - taken from a good distance in poor weather - but it does show that Ollie was worth saving!
ollie_349.jpg

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Thanks, Garry :)
 
I look forward to reading mine - thank you Garry.

Some sterling work you're doing there too BTW - the RSPCA destroy far too many animals IMO.
 
Thanks Gary, just received the book. Had a quick look at the area I a currently interested in (buying) and it has really helped. Had a quick skim through the rest and I like the projects you go through which will help reinforce, in a practical way, what has been read.

Thanks again. (I'll leave some feedback).
 
Thank you Garry. I've also donated to www.allforhorses.org.uk. I wasn't one of those who asked, but appreciate your response above to enquiries about the charity. I think most of us have become rightly wary of supporting charitable organisations without opportunities to judge those behind them.

Only had time for a glance through the book so far, I'll post an honest review after reading completely. First impressions are positive, which is just as well since the illustrations indicate you eat well, drink heavily, travel at speed, and are armed to the teeth!
 
Thanks Garry (y)
 
khakoo said:
Thank you Garry. I've also donated to www.allforhorses.org.uk. I wasn't one of those who asked, but appreciate your response above to enquiries about the charity. I think most of us have become rightly wary of supporting charitable organisations without opportunities to judge those behind them.

Only had time for a glance through the book so far, I'll post an honest review after reading completely. First impressions are positive, which is just as well since the illustrations indicate you eat well, drink heavily, travel at speed, and are armed to the teeth!
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All lies and misunderstandings, apart from the eating bit::) But as an insulin-dependent diabetic, even that's restricted.
I drink very little and my car is a heavy off roader, used to shunt trailers full of hay etc around muddy fields, normally in first gear low transfer, i.e. at less than walking pace.
Here's a crappy phone pic of my car last Monday, the trailer is 7m long and very wide, the trailer loaded on it is very lightweight compared with the hay that I normally carry, as you can imagine, it isn't fast:)
trailer.jpg
The David Brown tractor in the background does most of the heavy work.
The pony in the background is one of our rescues, severely malnourished, she gets fed every 2 1/2 hours, currently too weak to go in with a herd.
Most of my guns are shotguns, used for my sport of clay pigeon shooting - at 73 years old that's about the only sport left open to me, and I try to enjoy life . . .
 
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Many thanks Garry
Just started flicking through but seems very imformative.
Will leave feedback, when I have had a chance to study in depth
A donation will be on the way shortly. It is a pity you cannot get a local vet to volunteer their services for free!!

Paul
 
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