The Seattle-based team behind Modernist Cuisine, the monster 5-volume cookbook that came out a couple years ago, hasn't been resting on its laurels since the release of the celebrated tome. Last year, they came up with Modernist Cuisine at Home, a slimmed down version with friendlier recipes aimed at adventurous home cooks. Now, they've released The Photography of Modernist Cuisine, a collection of 145 of the most stunning images captured during photo sessions for the Modernist Cuisine collection.

The 312 -page book comes in a massive 26- by 16.5-inch spread size and is printed using ultra-high-resolution technology to produce images at a resolution that you have to see to believe. It's eye-popping, to say the least.

The most fun part of the book? The behind-the scenes looks at how all of the images were produced. Some of them are simple—with their tips and the proper equipment, you could produce similar shots at home. Others are more complicated, like their iconic equipment cross-section shots, made by actually cutting the equipment in half. Others required the use of high speed strobes capturing images at a million frames per second, while others were made with custom-built software and hardware to composite images with the detail of a fully opened iris, but the depth of field you'd expect with a stopped-down one.

We got our hands on some of the images to share with you. Click on any image below to open up a full-sized version in a new window.

And if you've been wanting to get in on the Modernist Cuisine action but have been deterred by the prohibitive pricing of both the original book and the At Home version, this one is significantly cheaper. It doesn't contain any recipes or cooking advice, but let's face it: some folks are getting these books just to ogle the gloriously large-formate, high-resolution photographs, right? If you or a loved one are in that crowd, this is the perfect route to take.

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