My first shot at food photography
Posted by Patricia on Feb 26, 2011 in Commercial, food photography | 14 comments
Last week I had two photo shoots scheduled in Corvallis, Oregon. I had a chance to do some food photography for the first time at the Del Alma Restaurant. The restaurant serves a delicious menu of Latin cuisine and features creative cocktails. I have to say that the food is so delicious. It was the best food I’ve had in a long time.
Since I don’t have the proper lighting for shooting food, I brought two utility lights and a foil covered binder. The binder could be bent around the food dishes to lighten up dark areas by acting as a light reflector. My step-daughter had sent me a blog post of a foodie that built a light box. This blog post lead me to a post, “How to build a light box” on another great foodie blog. Though I didn’t build a light box for this trip, I did use the idea of the inexpensive utility lights. I bought the lights at Walmart and used daylight bulbs in them.
The restaurant had some really nice natural light coming in through the windows so I only used one utility light as well as my speedlite flash. Hubby was my assistant and moved the light where I needed it. Though this is not ideal, it did work for now until I can get proper lighting equipment in the future. I didn’t need the on-camera flash when using my 50mm lens. I switched lenses a few times. So between my 18-135mm and the 50mm lenses, I think it worked out well.
The chef brought out beautiful dishes of food that were works of art! The owner made some of their special creative cocktails so I could photograph them as well. I took many shots for each dish and drink grouping. I wanted to be sure I had some good shots of everything. I did move rather slow as this was all new to me, but it was a very good learning experience. It will help me in the future to know what to think about when on location and what type of equipment to bring.
We returned to the restaurant right after sunset to photograph the outside of the building during the “blue hour”. Currently, I’m enrolled in Kent Weakley’s Night Photography course online. I used his ideas and tips for shooting during the “blue hour”.
Here is a list of websites that were very helpful to me in preparation for this food photography assignment.
- Nikas Culinaria – Food Photography 101
- Foodgawker website for inspiration
- Oh She Glows (A beautiful foodie blog with nice photos and the idea for the light box.)
- (never home) maker blog (Tutorial on building their own light box.)
- Food Bloggers Unite website (Food photography Basics)
- Make Your Own Powerful Reflector (From the Food Bloggers Unite website.)
- Kent Weakley’s Night Photography Classes Online
I welcome your feedback. If you have any tips on photographing food, I would love to hear it! For a related post on my day in Corvallis, you can read my daily photo journal entry for February 17th titled, “A day of photo shoots”.
14 Comments
Leave a Reply
About Me
Patricia Davidson is a Pacific Northwest outdoor photographer specializing in landscape, commercial/editorial assignments and travel photography.
These look great technically speaking. I like that they are composed off center and focus on key aspects of each dish. At the same time I feel the framing cuts out part of the food in an awkward way on the first 7 shots and the 9th. Maybe including a little more in each shot would keep the viewers eye from wandering out of the shot. Great to see a new genre of your photography, and I know you will be great at it.
Thank you Danny for your feedback! Since I was not in a studio setting, but on location, I had several shots with the same exact background in each one when taking full food shots. I was using a table by the window for most shots. In order to make it more interesting and get in closer to the food, I felt I needed to add some shots with some creative angles and cropping. No doubt, I have a lot to learn about framing. In one of the books I read “Food Styling for Photographers: A Guide to Creating Your Own Appetizing Art, it showed examples of creative crops, getting in close to focus on the food. The way I took some of the photos had a better fit to what the web designer wanted for displaying on the website. But I also have some full plate shots of each dish that I didn’t include on this blog post. I shot about 150 images.
Technicalities aside… the food looks fantastic and that’s the top criteria in my book. Really sumptuous and jumps off the screen. PS can I get an add on your blogroll.. thanks and congrats on the new venture
Thank you Catherine! You most definitely can add me to your blogroll! I will do the same with your blog too.
My initial comment probably came across harsher and more sweeping than I meant it. Thanks for explaining your method and what you had to work with. It must have been a challenge to have one backdrop and balance what the webmaster wanted with what works best in the camera. Great use of off-camera lighting with natural light.
Danny, I didn’t think your comments were harsh at all! I really appreciate the feedback. Any feedback is helpful in my pursuit of improving my skills!
I’m with Catherine, the food jumps off the plate. I like that you used the natural light for your shoot as well. Some of the crops seemed a bit tight, but since I’ve done this kind of thing before I knew you had a lot of images to choose from. Working with web designers can be a challenge, but I think these are really great – especially for a first time at food. The drink photos are superb. I like that you used angles off center and gave them a unique look. I’ve done a number of shots for bars and boutiques, I would be pleased with results such as these.
Best,
Ralph
PS – I had seen some of these before from the link in a previous blipfoto entry. I’m sorry if I didn’t take the time to comment back then.
Thank you Ralph for taking the time to look and comment here! I really appreciate it. It’s definitely not easy! I hope I can get more opportunity to practice in the future.
I just have to add my comments…..what you have done makes me want to eat or drink and that has to be the bottom line as far as I am concerned……enjoyed the DOF used. Composition used makes these very appealing. Well done.
Thank you Rainie!
For a first-time out, this is great!
I’m going to start off with a background note about my philosophy of shooting food.
As a graphic designer, I compose new documents containing food photography regularly. Asymmetric composition is extraordinarily important in food shots, because it gives the designer options with regards to the text. One difference about creating a layout with food (as opposed to a layout with people) is that food is more like a framed piece of art when you shoot it, and sometimes the relationship between the food and the plate is really important. I have spent countless hours cloning and reconstructing the edge of plates that were clipped off in the original photo, but essential to the finished brochure, menu, etc. That has changed my awareness of how I shoot food, and how I shoot it for different clients. When I shoot food at a wedding, I know that the photo IS the end-product, so I get to frame it however I think it looks the best. When I’m shooting with the knowledge that the food will be an illustration in something larger, I try to give myself more leeway, and not crop so tight in the camera that I can’t recrop with my layout tools. It’s an uncomfortable but useful question to ask with each job, “am I an artist or an illustrator today?”
I like what I see here. It’s a really solid batch of photos, and I’d be proud of my results if I got all these from a single shoot.
There are things that I would do differently… Perhaps that’s one of the cool things about what we do is that we get to be different from each other. Each exposure here has a different issue. In one, I would flip the entree in photoshop (skewer). In others, I would choose a different white balance (tuna and torte). The shot of the beef might have benefited from an additional light source behind to give it sheen — that’s going to help it look hot and juicy — oh man, did you ever hit this on the nose with the seafood!!!!!
All in all, I love the approach, and you’re consistent between frames — yay! Tight crops, short DOF, even light, framing, points of interest, color — there are SO many things you hit right on the head. IMHO, unless you’re shooting for Denny’s, it’s not just about making the food look delicious — you also want to give potential customers the feeling that they will enjoy their dining experience, and this is perhaps where you succeeded the most.
Thanks for sharing.
Thank you Robert! I appreciate your feedback!
Wow, I’m duly impressed! Food photography is pretty hard for most people, you definitely have a knack for it. I appreciate how you studied up and then applied what you learned in real time. Excellent work! Looks like a yummy night as well!
Thank you Bob!