Artists (and others) beware.
I'm an amateur artist and bought this book for some good reference pics--particulary of the actors--for doing some LOTR drawings. The problem is that the pics are rather small much of the time (a lot of fluffy text takes up much of the pages), and the shots usually aren't that interesting, anyway. There are few headshots of the main characters, and Gollum isn't featured at all, outside of the back of his head.Of course, you can find tons of beautiful LOTR images online, such as at the official movie site, but for drawing, I find it more convenient to have a photo reference on the table in front of me. If you're just a fan and don't care about creating portraits, I'd still recommend just looking around online. The photos in this book are surprisingly mediocre given the absolutely stunning source material.