I just finished reading/studying "The Hot Shoe Diaries" by Joe McNally. The title should clue you in that this isn't your dry technical manual. In fact it's a fast paced, humor laced discussion of just how he creates stunning images using Nikon Speedlights. Although this is Nikon centric, the principles involved are really generic and would apply to any high end flash lighting system.

So who is the audience? I'd say that this is for the serious photographer who wants to take artificial lighting up a big notch from just getting the subject properly exposed, to creating a really unique image. It is not a technical manual - "push the power button and hold down these two buttons to set the EV compensation." kind of book. If you just want to use your pop-up flash or mount your flash unit in the hot shoe of your camera, this book won't help you.

He covers the equipment he uses. Can you say "Mucho dinero!". In the photo of his gear, I count at least 14 nikon Speedlights!

Aside from that, his examples of how to use flashes and various light modifiers are ingenious, yet somehow pretty easy to understand. Actually, the entire book after the equipment intro is a series of wonderful images and an explanation of how he set up and lit the scene.

This book is very instructive, filled with things to emulate in my photography and fun to read to boot.