Food Photography

[ManWay]

This is quite useful. Apologies if it has been commented on previously, I've just seen it.

http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/food-and-drink/the-biggest-mistake-people-make-when-taking-photos-of-food-according-to-food-stylists-a7821686.html

 

Richard

[Ed Rooney]

Richard, that video is a lesson on what NOT to do with food for stock. What the shooter is doing is all about design and elaborate production. That might be fine if your doing an assignment for a restaurant or a book publisher who's paying expenses, but not for stock. 

 

Thank you for the most enjoyable tour of Donegal. My people are from Sligo just south of you.  

[Matt Ashmore]

6 hours ago, GS-Images said:

Indoor lighting isn't something I'm very good at ....

 

Geoff.

 

What you need is a window!   :

 

[Marianne]

I worked as a part-time assistant for an incredibly talented food photographer for 3 years and I never got the hang of it. It's an art.

Here's one cookbook  project I worked on. If you click through to Amazon and "look inside" you'll see why I could never hold my own work up to such a high standard.

Not to say I haven't licensed a couple shots popped off in my kitchen - but it has two huge windows with southern exposure and a door with light flowing in as well. 

I do like that diffuser in the window idea. 

 

I'm much more of a get out and travel walk in nature shoot natural light kind of photographer.  I can sit for hours with bug spray waiting for the blue hour and beyond, but my studio shooting is not up to the same caliber. Even though I learned from one of the best. I think some things just can't be taught unless you already have the right inclination. 

 

 

[Ed Rooney]

Don't worry about not shooting food, Geoff -- the world does not need another food photographer. 

 

Matt's suggestion is a good one, however. Most of Johannes Vermeer's best work used the light from one window. I'm not Dutch, and I don't paint anymore, but I also use the light from one window. I don't use a tripod or any reflectors. Those things would be courting an accident in my confined space. I handhold my cameras with IS on and the auto ISO set at 800 max. I open the shadows in LR. I try to use f/5.6. 

 

I'm close friends with one of the top lifestyle/food photographers in America (I'm her daughter's godfather), and I've watched her do major shoots with 4 or 5 people in a pro studio kitchen. Me, I work alone. And since I'm planning to eat the food, I'm hungry. I try to shoot an overview, a dinner's view and a closeup. 

 

I do the best I can. That's all any of us do.

 

Edo