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

Product Author Bios

Teri Campbell is a pro photographer with more than two decades of experience shooting food. He founded Teri Studios in 1988 and has created award-winning work for consumer packaged goods companies and restaurants throughout the country including, Bob Evans Restaurants, Kellogg's, KFC, SuperValu, Long John Silver's, Dean Foods, Duncan Hines, and Hershey's. He is a frequent speaker at events such as PDN's PhotoPlus Expo, the International Conference on Food Styling and Photography, and the FoodPhoto Festival in Tarragona, Spain. He is a member of the American Society of Media Photographers (ASMP) and the International Association of Culinary Professionals (IACP).

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.

Table of Contents

Introduction: Food and Me, the Beginning

Part I: Chapter One: What Makes Shooting Food So Difficult

Chapter Two: The Space

Chapter Three: The Tools

Chapter Four: The People and Their Roles

Chapter Five: The Process

Chapter Six: Marketing and Business

Part II: Assignment stories