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Those people that know my style of photography are never surprised when I am on a photo shoot - road trip and find me trying to decide which camera(s) to bring along on that particular day. We often hear the refrain "the camera doesn't matter." I beg to differ. The camera matters a lot. Whether I want to shoot with a toy camera, a Nikon SLR, film or digital, 35mm or 120 film, hell -- even a

Written by T. Michael Testi

 

Ansel Adams: 400 Photographs is one of those monumental undertakings not only because of the man who created this body of work, but because of the volume of his body of work, and the number of people he influenced. To try to pare this down to 40 (Examples: The Making of 40 Photographs by Ansel Adams) or in this case 400 photographs takes time, effort, and dedication.

For those who may not know of Ansel Adams, or whom have only heard his name with relation to photography, he was the most honored American photographer of the twentieth century. Once destined to become a concert pianist he instead chose photography. Over the course of the next 50 plus years he defined the art of photography.

400 Photographs constitutes a study in that life. The book is 440 pages long and, as the title states, contains 400 of Adams' finest photographs. The book is arranged into five major periods which correspond to his growth as an artist. It is edited by Andrea Stillman, a close associate and editor of seven of Adams' books. 400 Photographs starts with an introduction in which Stillman gives a brief overview of Ansel Adams' life.

"1916-1930 – Yosemite and the High Sierra" begins when Adams was 14 years old and he visited Yosemite for the first time. He had his first camera, and on this trip he recorded a "visual diary" of where he

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Written by T. Michael Testi

It is said that you eat with your eyes first. That can be derived by the fact that so many menus and restaurant advertisements have professional food stylists setting up photographic shoots to wow you with their images. But while these images really want to make you desire that dish, you would probably get ill if you tried to eat it as it was shot. In fact at the start of Food Styling For Photographers, there is a disclaimer that these methods of food preparation are not meant for human consumption.

In Food Styling For Photographers you will learn the tricks of what it takes to create that look that will have people wanting to taste the delectables. The premise of this book is that not all shoots can afford to hire a professional food stylist, or there is not the time to find one to make a deadline. As a professional photographer, there may be times in which you have to take the bull by the horns and do it yourself. Food Styling For Photographers is 272 pages and is divided into 12 chapters.

Chapter 1, "Introduction to Food Styling," begins by giving an overview of what food styling is, and to set up some rules and guidelines for the styling of food. You will see how to shop like a stylist, as well as assembling your own food styling kit. Chapter 2, "Sets and Setting," now gets in to

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Written by T. Michael Testi

 

Last August, Adobe released the second incarnation of their photography workflow product Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 2 to rave reviews. As is to be expected, Martin Evening has updated his bestselling book The Adobe Photoshop Lightroom Book to enhance his existing material as well as to reflect all of the changes to Lightroom 2.

The Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 2 Book: The Complete Guide for Photographers has been significantly updated and, as with the prior version, it was written with photographers in mind, addressing Lightroom's features from a professional photographer's perspective. This version is 624 pages in length (a whopping 272 additional pages of material) and contains 11 chapters (encompassed in 5 additional chapters).

Chapter 1, "Introducing Adobe Photoshop Lightroom," begins by describing exactly what Lightroom is, and where it fits in within your image processing workflow. Lightroom is a high quality image processer and photographic image database management system rolled into one. In this chapter you will learn about installing Lightroom as well as all about working with the Lightroom interface. Chapter 2, "Importing Photos," explains that because Lightroom is a catalog management system for your images, the first step is that you need to import images. Next you will learn about all of the options that are available to you such as converting images to Digital Negatives (DNG), using Adobe Bridge as a front end, and how imported images are organized.

Chapter 3, "Navigating the Library Module,"

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Written by T. Michael Testi

It seems to me that whenever dealing with technical devices, everyone has to create a manual that is dry and to the point. I would also think that that over the course of time these things would change and we could have a manual that would inspire us to pick it up and learn more. Perhaps, you would think, we could get an interesting manual that actually teaches us how to use a product rather than just describe it.

Take, for example, a Canon EOS 40D, when they spend the first weekend experimenting and looking in the manual until they learn enough to get by - and then they use those same old options over and over. It's not because people are dumb, rather it is because the manuals are not put together to inspire you to explore your new device in depth. That is where Canon EOS 40D: The Rocky Nook Manual comes in. Its goal is to inspire you to take a deeper look at your 40D and really learn how to use it. Canon EOS 40D is 200 pages in length and covers seven chapters.

Chapter 1, "Camera Technology," shows you how the Canon EOS 40D is a high performance camera that leaves very little to be desired in the way of options. It contains all of the professional features that a consumer would want in a camera and a lot more. This chapter explains what setting you

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