Food Photography & Lighting: A Commercial Photographer's Guide to Creating Irresistible Images

by Teri Campbell

Creating mouth-watering food images requires more than just a love of food and access to a kitchen. With the popularity of food blogs and photography how-tos, it’s tempting to think that anyone can photograph food, but it’s another thing entirely to shoot for a tight ad layout with the pressure of your client watching over your shoulder.

Commercial food photographer Teri Campbell has been called a “lighting master,” and in this beautifully illustrated book, he not only shares his detailed lighting set-ups and shooting techniques for a wide range of food and drink shots, but also offers candid advice on how to set up a studio, use the right equipment, market your work, find clients, bid on assignments, hire food and prop stylists, and communicate effectively with everyone on the set.

Campbell shares his expertise on dozens of commercial assignments–from shooting beignets on location in New Orleans, to creating perfect ice tea pours, to photographing beans on real flames in his studio. Learn how he creates dynamic compositions, uses studio strobes, and arranges light diffusers, reflectors, fill cards, and mirrors, to create the perfect capture. Campbell also discusses his post-processing techniques in Adobe Camera Raw and Adobe Photoshop to create images that are irresistible.

This guide for intermediate and advanced users provides the insider details to help you expand your photography skills or turn your passion for food and images into a professional career.

Genres: Photography, Food

273 pages, Paperback

First published September 1, 2012

Reviews

[Plateresca · Rating 3 out of 5]

The first part of the book seemed to me to be more like a promotional material. No doubt Teri's studio is cool; and who wouldn't want a large room filled with plates, and then another one filled with surfaces etc - but how many of us can actually appropriate this experience?
The second part, though, where he gets to describe some of his shoots, is much more interesting and inspiring.
I wish the book was a little bit more carefully designed: I've noticed a number of typos, and somewhere in the middle of the book you start seeing highlighted quotes placed right after the same text, so it feels like the author repeats himself twice so that you could understand him better - and then this element of design disappears again, like something that was supposed to be edited out, but was missed on some pages.
All that said, Teri is a superb photographer, and one can learn a lot from observing his works.

[Scott Andrews · Rating 1 out of 5]

There are at least 10,000 people in the field that take better photos than this guy. that is before all of the amateurs that best him with iPhone photography. I would just stay away from anyone with zero humility and who completely and totally overinflates his budgets. Honestly, read the page with his invoice structure. Leave it on the shelf. I am sorry I wasted my time with this self-promoter's self-aggrandizing pamphlet

[Manthan Naik · Rating 5 out of 5]

It's an amazing book to learn about food photography. He has shared a lot of trade secrets!
One thing which you find a little funny is that, he boasts a lot about his HUGE studio. So, just ignore that part. Overall It's a very rare book to learn about commercial food photography. I loved it. Thank you Teri.

[Jenn · Rating 5 out of 5]

Gorgeous images. I love how the author walks you through every aspect of the photos he has produced. Suddenly I'm hungry 😜

[Celz Lin · Rating 4 out of 5]

Really nice tips on photography. It makes we wanna eat.

[Pat · Rating 4 out of 5]

Clear lighting diagrams, works through creation of images for commercial campaigns.