I finished reading Vision and Voice by David duChemin today. The bottom line? Recommended.

He starts off defining the difference between how you saw/felt the image you took and what it says to the viewer when it's done for display. He does that well. 

Once he gets that message across, he proceeds to show you what he means, and that's where the book really shines.

Using tools like focus, light, shadow, color and sharpness, he shows you how he crafts an image in Lightroom that leads the viewer to see what he saw and feel what he felt when he took the image. In the process, he describes, in a non-technical way, what all the sliders and buttons in the Lightroom develop module do. He focuses on the why, rather than the how, and I liked that for a change. There are lots of technical books that describe the how. They're useful; this is just a refreshing difference.

His examples are clear and to the point. He's not dogmatic about how to do it, he's just showing how he did it and why. Nice. He also has copies of the images he uses that you can download and follow along to see what's going on.

All in all, I really enjoyed the book. I was reading in Kindle on the couch with my iPad, but I frequently had to get up and run to Lightroom on my desktop computer to test the various ideas he was describing. I learned lots, and spent a couple of hours later in the afternoon, trying some ideas on my own images.

I've read duChemin's other books, VisionMongers and Within the Frame, and most of the ebooks he has available through his latest endeavour with Craft and Vision. I've not been disappointed, period.

My recommendation? Go get 'em.