About three months ago Danika turned to me and suggested we do more for charity. That is something that you can never just say “meh..” to. So we got thinking. She is a very accomplished artist so we are planning on selling some of her works for charity. We also thought about setting up a large community vegetable garden to supply vegetables and fruits to lower income families, however that is a wee bit adventurous for both our time and wallets right now.
She then said “why don’t you make a book about food photography and sell it”. That was that. For the last two months in the evenings after work you would find me typing away, making illustrations and designing page layouts.
The book is done. It took longer than expected. Apparently that is how it goes with these things.
I am going to keep this short and sweet – here goes:
I wrote a short book on food photography. It covers everything you need to know to get yourself taking great food photos in your house. Examples of how to use scrims, bounce cards, natural light, artificial light. Everything to get you going.
I wanted it to be more than that though. So, what I did was include a bunch of examples. On one full page you see the food photo I took and on the page next to it you get a detailed description of the setup, along with an illustration I did showing exactly how the scene was setup. Where the light was coming from. Where the bounces are. Where the camera is – AND WHY.
There are examples for both natural and artificial light. I talk about lenses, cameras, tripods all that good stuff. I even give advice on composition, scene setup and all that stuff.
By the time you finish this short book, I want you to be able to take really great shots of your awesome food at home. No studio stuff, just a camera and some light, and a few doodads that you can buy at an art supply store.
Now, we all know about the horrors going on in Japan. I don’t need to talk about the loss of life and property. The continuing earthquakes, the radiation. Scenes no disaster movie could ever begin to visualize are happening over there. With that in mind, 100% of the profits from the sale of this book are going to Japan relief, through the Red Cross (and, if anyone knows of a better charity to get the money where it matters, please for heck sake let me know).
Here is how it works:
I designed the book. I wrote it, I took the photography and made the illustrations. I learned Adobe InDesign to put it together (a really fun package BTW) in to a neat little book. Now I just needed to sell it, which I cannot do. Thankfully Blurb can.
CLICK THIS LINK HERE to the buy the book:
BUY THE WRIGHTFOOD FOOD PHOTOGRAPHY BOOK!
The book costs Blurb $34.44 to produce. The cover price is $44.44. Those $10 dollars is what goes to Japan relief. I make absolutely nothing on this. I wish I could make it cheaper for people to buy so I could ramp up the donation cost a bit, and save customers some cash too, but I cannot – that is set by Blurb.
So, don’t waste time reading this blog post. Click that link, go buy the book and lets raise a shit load of money to help those suddenly made less fortunate than ourselves in Japan.