You'll look at food product photos with a new 'eye'October 12, 2008 This was a very easy read. The examples and images provided were very clear and useful for a novice food stylist. Now I analyse food photography in magazines/books and easily spot the obvious styling constructs - both good and bad. I haven't applied the tips yet but am confident that the info provided will be very useful. I am not a photographer and so can't comment on the value of lighting tips, but I can see that if food styling is not the photographer's main art, then this book will be useful.
Should Be Called Syling Food For PhotographyJuly 15, 2008 3 out of 3 found this review helpful
From the original review on [...]: This recently published book is a fine how-to primer on preparing food for the camera. Bellingham is an Oregon-based stylist. Bybee is a Dallas-based commercial photographer. The detailed content runs the gamut: cold beverages, salads, pasta and sauces, burgers and sandwiches, grilled and roasted meat, vegetables, ice cream, desserts, breakfast and garnishing. My only complaint is not about the information on styling - which is comprehensive and easy to follow. Rather, as a food photographer, I am naturally interested in the sets and photo techniques used to create the hero shots. While there are a number of set shots and brief descriptions of how the shots were created, their small size and limited number suggests that they were an afterthought. Again and again, I wished that Bybee's comments on her vision and process had been greatly expanded into the ample amounts of adjacent white space. Clearly, the book was written primarily for food stylists. A more appropriate title would have been Food Styling For Photography. Nevertheless, Food Styling For Photographers is an important read for both students of food photography and styling.
If you are interested in food photographyMay 19, 2008 4 out of 4 found this review helpful
Finally, there is a Food Styling book for Photographers. I took 2 food styling classes in LA before - the purpose was to understand how food was prepared for the camera and also to see how food photographers setup their lights. I love food photography and read many popular food blogs with their work. So when I know this Food Styling for Photographers came out, I can't wait to order a copy and I was very happy after flipping through the book.
This book gives you many tricks of the trade and notes from photographers with lots of setup photos, both food setup and camera/lighting setup. The printing quality and the page layout are very good - the font size is easy to read, the color pictures are clear, clean and colorful. They gives you details on how to buy the food, how to prepare the food, how to assemble the food, how to plate the food, how to decorate the food, etc. They gives you before, during and final photos.
I also own Digital Food Photography by Lou Manna and Working with Plate by Christopher Styler and David Lazarus. In my opinion, if you are interested in food photography, buy Food Styling for Photographyers and Digital Food Photography and you are good to go. Highly recommend these two books.
Fantastic food photography bookMay 15, 2008 1 out of 2 found this review helpful
This is the best book of FOOD PHOTOGRAPHY I ever seen! I'm a still life and food semi pro photographer and this is my perfect book.
I suggest this book to all the photographers .. not only for food photographers. Everybody in the sector must have this book.
It's really easy and helpful! Thanks to the authors to share with everybody the secrets of food photography.
An excellent place to startMay 14, 2008 2 out of 2 found this review helpful
This book is an excellent way to get started in food photography. It has chapters dedicated to meats, drinks, ice cream, garnishings, and more.
Each with a shopping list of what was used for the featured photo (or photos) for that particular chapter and tips for shopping for food photography in general which I found very interesting.
It does leave out something which would be nice to have, such as how to prepare beer for photograpy but, they mention this would require a full book dedicated to it which I think is fair, I wouldn't expect someone to write a book on every item of food out there.
