Digital Food Photography by Lou Manna gives you the ingredients to cook up your own recipe for success-with professional lighting techniques, composition, food and prop styling, retouching, and tricks of the trade. The author promises to teach you in 256 pages how digital photography combines teamwork, creativity, and technology, and how to make money creating delectable works of photographic art.
Great food always elicits strong reactions-the smell of freshly baked bread, the taste of a perfectly prepared steak. The job of a food photographer is to elicit that same mouth-watering reaction, but without the benefit of scent or taste. A well-shot photograph can send crowds flocking to a new restaurant or boost the sales of a culinary magazine. Capturing the perfect image requires a trained eye, finesse, and photographic skill.
Manna’s book (explained in a concise and clear cut manner) is like going to food photography school even for experienced commercial photography shooters. Reading every chapter gives live to an entire experience: dealing with art directors, clients and food stylists….understanding complex lighting situations, camera angles, stand-ins…understanding the importance of post-production and how to digitally get the results needed.
You will also find photography tips and key ‘secrets’ on how other items are substituted or made into food. In other words, what makes this book different from others is the author’s ability to explain the intangible “art” of photography next to the actual shooting techniques. The pages are filled with step by step (and photo by photo) examples of different food photography assignments and what was needed to be done to make the perfect shot.
[tags]photography book, photo book, digital food photography, lou manna, food photography[/tags]
