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I really should have a lot more foodie shots than I have. This one has sold a few times though, for decent prices. Cafe in Barcelona, with traditional local Barcelona Bombe and Patatas Bravas, with beer. 

 

table-in-a-barcelona-cafe-showing-local-

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Mark, this new post has refocused me on the various aspects of my food photographer for stock. Not everyone is a foodie like you and me. I'm going to get back here and share some thoughts, but right now I want to finish breakfast. 

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28 minutes ago, Ed Rooney said:

Mark, this new post has refocused me on the various aspects of my food photographer for stock. Not everyone is a foodie like you and me. I'm going to get back here and share some thoughts, but right now I want to finish breakfast. 

 

 

Too good an answer for just a green arrow!

Edited by Mr Standfast
stuff
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An area of interest to me, I try to keep a camera or phone handy to shoot what I’m preparing (some of these images have distorted on posting - click on the first one and follow the arrows!).

 

Preparation of poached pears in red wine recipe, one of sequence of 12 images Stock Photo

 

 

 

 

imperial-measure-spoons-lying-on-front-page-of-19th-early-20th-century-recipe-book-with-handwritten-treacle-cake-recipe-complete-with-measures-2BNPXE3.jpg

 

 

 

 

Mortar and pestle with whole back peppercorns Stock Photo

 

 

 

 

Recipe of Kale, shaved pecorino and Serrano ham with Quinoa on a white plate Stock Photo

 

 

 

 

Freekeh, cauliflower and pomegranate salad with flat leaf parsley Stock Photo

 

 

 

 

freshly-picked-beetroot-on-a-slate-background-2BR1TWC.jpg

 

 

 

 

Boiled crab claws with dill cream mayonnaise Stock Photo

 

 

 

 

Fresh cooked beetroot with almonds, herb and pomegranate Stock Photo

 

 

 

 

Ramekin serving of fresh Jellied Eels on a slate background Stock Photo

 

 

 

 

 

https://c7.alamy.com/comp/2BP1G0E/hand-holding-a-square-of-emmental-cheese-with-a-bite-out-of-it-on-a-white-backlit-background-2BP1G0E.jpg

 

 

hand-holding-a-forkfull-of-noodles-above-a-chinese-bowl-of-noodles-on-a-white-backlit-background-2BP1FXN.jpg

Edited by Malcolm Park
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Ok, as per Space Cadets request, three images taken over the past few weeks, during lockdown, with a few studio details. As I mentioned in the previous post, I've been trying to get to grips with this subject, with the help of a couple of excellent food photography books and these are a few of my early efforts. All the shots were taken using a Godox 200 pro flash gun shot through a mid size Bowens softbox. In front of that I hung a cheap Asda, white translucent shower curtain to act as a further light diffuser. The light was placed as close to the table as I could get it. The biscuits have a white reflector opposite the main light. The cheese shot has no reflector and the cake had  a reflector positioned so that it just put some light back onto the top of the slice of cake.

 

Home made Jammy Dodger biscuits..

 

2E49HEJ.jpg

Left over Christmas Stilton..

 

2E49HHR.jpg

A Nigella Lawson Peanut Butter and Chocolate cake. Its delicious but you can put on weight just looking at it!

 

2E49HJ1.jpg

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Wow so many great ideas on here, Steve are you taking bookings for tea ?😁

 

I've also been looking through a recipe book I've been using recently now concentrating more on the images and the way they are presented etc.  I no longer have any studio gear unfortunately so looks like available light might have to do....  Think I need to pop out and get some shopping😁

 

Carol

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29 minutes ago, Steve Hyde said:

 

 

Home made Jammy Dodger biscuits..

 

 

Left over Christmas Stilton..

 

 

A Nigella Lawson Peanut Butter and Chocolate cake. Its delicious but you can put on weight just looking at it!

 

 

I am quite envious of that extremely rustic tabletop. I just have a bit of marble and a big chopping block at the moment.

My problem is prising our dinner out of our eager hands long enough to photograph it. Yours at least have a fighting chance of escaping scoffage for ten minutes! OK, five minutes.

I think we had the last of the Stilton in a soup the other day otherwise I'd have been inspired by your no. 2 there. My sourhdough-ish loaves are great but look quite boring.

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1 minute ago, CAROL SAUNDERS said:

I no longer have any studio gear unfortunately so looks like available light might have to do..

You might be able to get by with a flashgun and diffuser- that's what I use for the garden flowers. I dug out my inflatable softbox like a little water-wing, about 15x20cm, it fixes on with Velcro, and one of those cheap Chinese flash triggers. Or try Steve's shower curtain, or one of those light tents off Ebay. Or what you've got.

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10 minutes ago, spacecadet said:

You might be able to get by with a flashgun and diffuser- that's what I use for the garden flowers. I dug out my inflatable softbox like a little water-wing, about 15x20cm, it fixes on with Velcro, and one of those cheap Chinese flash triggers. Or try Steve's shower curtain, or one of those light tents off Ebay. Or what you've got.

Good idea, yes I have a flashgun for my Nikon and I have a small soft box also which fits on with Velcro, think it was also called a beauty dish.  Well I've found the box😁.....

 

As for rustic, I've noticed quite a few images use rustic type plates, yet another recipe in my book just shows chicken goujons on greaseproof paper and they still look yummy, also some on a table on top of what looks like an old tea towel so I guess there's lots of things that work - think my food shop list is getting longer😁

 

Carol

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30 minutes ago, spacecadet said:

I am quite envious of that extremely rustic tabletop. I just have a bit of marble and a big chopping block at the moment.

My problem is prising our dinner out of our eager hands long enough to photograph it. Yours at least have a fighting chance of escaping scoffage for ten minutes! OK, five minutes.

I think we had the last of the Stilton in a soup the other day otherwise I'd have been inspired by your no. 2 there. My sourhdough-ish loaves are great but look quite boring.


 That extreme rustic table top is four bits of 4x2 wood I picked up as driftwood on a nearby beach. I cut it down to 80cm’s and push the lengths together. They’re sat on two builders plastic trestles. There’s a tray half way down on each trestle so I lie the wood across those for the overhead shots. I have a washed up scaffold board if I need to extend my table. I plan to paint the reverse side white and then sand it back as another table top option 🙂 

Edited by Steve Hyde
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Breakfast was good. I'm back.

 

A third of my Alamy collection involves food. There are the prepared meals we are now showing and the act of cooking. I also have lots of images of people dining, mostly alfresco, and what I see on the shelves of supermarkets and displayed in farmers markets. Snaps of signs in front of restaurants sell. 

 

There are a lot of stock tips that can be learned by looking at other contributor’s food pictures, but let me point out a few food facts I’ve come to realise. 

 

Simple food subjects sell best. My three best selling stock food images are gelato, pizza, and the classic Continental breakfast, a croissant with a cappuccino. That is not the full-meal pizza that Mark shows at the start of this post, but a simple Pizza Margareta with cheese, tomato, and basil. Mark’s pizza is more nutritious but not really Italian. In Italy, it might be called pizza capricciosa, but theirs would have different toppings. 

 

The only two basic views that work with food on a table are overhead and the diner’s view. We can crop in for a closeup or show the entire table. Do you disagree? Prove it. 

 

These are, of course, just my own opinions. 

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15 minutes ago, Ed Rooney said:

Breakfast was good. I'm back.

 

A third of my Alamy collection involves food. There are the prepared meals we are now showing and the act of cooking. I also have lots of images of people dining, mostly alfresco, and what I see on the shelves of supermarkets and displayed in farmers markets. Snaps of signs in front of restaurants sell. 

 

There are a lot of stock tips that can be learned by looking at other contributor’s food pictures, but let me point out a few food facts I’ve come to realise. 

 

Simple food subjects sell best. My three best selling stock food images are gelato, pizza, and the classic Continental breakfast, a croissant with a cappuccino. That is not the full-meal pizza that Mark shows at the start of this post, but a simple Pizza Margareta with cheese, tomato, and basil. Mark’s pizza is more nutritious but not really Italian. In Italy, it might be called pizza capricciosa, but theirs would have different toppings. 

 

The only two basic views that work with food on a table are overhead and the diner’s view. We can crop in for a closeup or show the entire table. Do you disagree? Prove it. 

 

These are, of course, just my own opinions. 

Thanks, Ed. Do put some up.

BTW, 2D98YKX , it's shepherd's pie. I'd hate to think anyone couldn't find it.

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3 hours ago, spacecadet said:

.......and Hochar Père et Fils too. Clearly I need to up my styling game.

Yes, and 2000 vintage which is sadly no longer available. Though I did keep a few of the empties so I could perhaps refill with Ribena for photographic purposes.....

 

Tonight’s project is to photograph our Burns Supper.

Edited by Sally
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1 hour ago, Sally said:

 

 

Tonight’s project is to photograph our Burns Supper.

 

We’re doing Burns Night for two tonight.  Vegetarian haggis Wellington with neeps &tatties!

 

I shall insist Ian puts his kilt on! 

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A bit more bla bla. Forgive me. 

 

I've scanned my food sales twice today. Not a single sale—not one—was of a complex food selection. They could all be easily captioned with a single subject word: pizza, pasta, stew, tomatoes, mushrooms, green beans. The image below is nothing special except that the boxes are labelled in Italian. It is a big seller of mine. There are a half-million images of tomatoes on Alamy.

 

sicilian-tomatoes-for-sale-at-an-outdoor

 

 

I say this because I see that many of you are creative amateur chefs. Me too . . . at least when I had a workable kitchen I was. It's fun to dream up original recipes. But presenting them as stock images is perhaps less fun. The mixed antipasti image I posted earlier has never sold. 

 

In the future, I will try to upload images of food that I feel might sell. I will continue to think of cuisine as an adventure but not always for stock.

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I do like your plates Betty, and the food of course 😄 Tonight I am making speedy Pizza, this takes me approx 30 minutes😁made on wholemeal pitta bread sliced into two halves with courgettes and red peppers.  The intention is to try and shoot it also, I have found my flashgun and small soft box that goes on it, so we shall see😄

 

Carol

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2 hours ago, CAROL SAUNDERS said:

I do like your plates Betty, and the food of course 😄 Tonight I am making speedy Pizza, this takes me approx 30 minutes😁made on wholemeal pitta bread sliced into two halves with courgettes and red peppers.  The intention is to try and shoot it also, I have found my flashgun and small soft box that goes on it, so we shall see😄

 

Carol

Thank you. Good luck shooting now that you’ve dug out the small soft box! Lucky you found it.

now where did I put that doohickey?

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Interestingly, today, Alamy put up a food based post on their Instagram Alamycontent page asking for food content. The post points you towards the Alamy ‘what should I shoot tool’ which currently has 77 food related requests.

 

https://www.alamy.com/contentresearchtool/whatshouldishoot.aspx

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On 25/01/2021 at 20:26, Betty LaRue said:

Thank you. Good luck shooting now that you’ve dug out the small soft box! Lucky you found it.

now where did I put that doohickey?

 

I'm sure I've said this before—maybe too often—but I see that Betty and Carol have posted on the two most popular dishes with non-Italian lovers of Italianish food. 

 

Traditional Italians eat both spaghetti and meatballs but not together. Spaghetti and other pasta is served as a first course. Meatballs (polpette) is a second course. And although there is usually a bread basket on the table, Italians don't eat bread with their pasta. And surely not garlic bread. 

 

And then there's pizza. When I lived in Rome in the 1960s, there were just three pizzerias in that city of almost three million people. It was exotic foreign cuisine. Pizza was born in Naples before Italy became a united country in 1861 (?). Both these famous dishes came to New York City at the start of the 20th century. I lived just a few blocks from Lombardi’s. They claim to be the first pizzeria in America. Maybe. 

 

Both these dishes became popular across the USA and then the world. Fairly recently, pizza has become popular throughout Italy. I have not been back to Italy since 2008, but I would not be surprised to find spaghetti and meatballs on the menu at a tourist-savvy restaurant. 

 

Please, if I start to tell this story again, hit me on the side of my head with a pizza box. 

 

Edwardo

 

Edited by Ed Rooney
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On 25/01/2021 at 14:02, Tony ALS said:

picking-up-by-hand-hot-steaming-percebes-a-type-of-barnacle-from-galicia-spain-traditional-at-christmas-in-spain-santander-cantabria-spain-2020-2DYE42K.jpg

 

Percebes (goose neck barnacles) starting to disappear!

Traditional at Christmas in Spain if you're happy to pay the exorbitant price.

Just zoomed so a sale on the way with any luck.

I remember, long time ago, in summers at family holiday house in a village near my home town, Ferrol, that very often sellers of percebes, percebeiros, were going from house to house selling them very cheap. My parents bought them by kilos and all the family gathered together around a table eating them afterward. Last Christmas in a fishmonger in Madrid ask for 180 E per kilo.

Expensive? you can see yourself how the risk their lives to catch them.

 

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8 minutes ago, Ed Rooney said:

 

I'm sure I've said this before—maybe too often—but I see that Betty and Carol have posted on the two most popular dishes with non-Italian lovers of Italianish food. 

 

Traditional Italians eat both spaghetti and meatballs but not together. Spaghetti and other pasta is served as a first course. Meatballs (polpette) is a second course. And although there is usually a bread basket on the table, Italians don't eat bread with their pasta. And surely not garlic bread. 

 

And then there's pizza. When I lived in Rome in the 1960s, there were just three pizzerias in that city of almost three million people. It was exotic foreign cuisine. Pizza was born in Naples before Italy became a united country in 1861 (?). Both these famous dishes came to New York City at the start of the 20th century. I lived just a few blocks from Lombardi’s. They claim to be the first pizzeria in America. Maybe. 

 

Both these dishes became popular across the USA and then the world. Fairly recently, pizza has become popular throughout Italy. I have not been back to Italy since 2008, but I would not be surprised to find spaghetti and meatball on the menu at tourist-savvy restaurants. 

 

Please, if I start to tell this story again, hit me on the side of my head with a pizza box. 

 

Edwardo

I love your knowledge, Edo. 
I grew up on plain food, the result of my mother being raised on a farm and living a very hard-scrabble life. Her father had been kicked in the head by his mule, and the resulting brain damaged caused him to become paranoid. He killed himself with a shotgun, leaving 5 children. My mom was 4 or 5. She dropped out of school after 5th grade because my grandmother, who took in washing, ironing and sewing, was sickly. Mom learned to make biscuits from scratch by the time she was 8, and already was a good cook when she left school.

They had a garden and canned food. I think some neighbors shared meat when they butchered something, a cow or pig. I never tasted anything Tex-mex or Italian until I was married and had some cookbooks, and learned Mexican from my in-laws who had lived in South Texas nearly on the border of Mexico for awhile.

If we had meat, and it was scarce, it was beef roasts, hamburger, pork chops, sausage, bacon, and chicken (mostly fried). Potatoes, gravy and plain cooked vegetables. There was no cabinet full of oregano, garlic salt or anything but plain salt & pepper.

I had a picky husband that was any woman’s worse nightmare to cook for. The fact I turned out to be a half-decent cook and learn to cook with spices is a miracle. What helped is I like food. I’m not picky except for a rare few things like brains, kidneys and wild game.

And yeah, spaghetti & meatballs is an Americanized dish, for sure. But I didn’t know that, Edo, until reading your discourse.

 

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34 minutes ago, Abiyoyo said:

I remember, long time ago, in summers at family holiday house in a village near my home town, Ferrol, that very often sellers of percebes, percebeiros, were going from house to house selling them very cheap. My parents bought them by kilos and all the family gathered together around a table eating them afterward. Last Christmas in a fishmonger in Madrid ask for 180 E per kilo.

Expensive? you can see yourself how the risk their lives to catch them.

 

Haha, a knowledgeable contributor. Yes, I am fully aware of the effort and danger in collecting one of my favourite seafoods. The price was 70 euros a kilo this last Christmas, so the rewards were not quite so good during these troubled times.

Always impressed by your interior shots which regularly sell (I follow the images sold in... threads).

I should add the price locally on the north coast of Spain is probably lower than in Madrid!

Edited by Tony ALS
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