Food? [Archive] - AusPhotography:: Australia's Premier Photography Forum::

Kafter244

29-06-2011, 7:30pm

My partner has a blog that I often take pictures for of craft things she makes and fabrics an such. Now she wants to blog about her cooking I'm having real trouble taking appetizing shots of her food.

I've heard professionals often use fake food or spray the food with a glaze or varnish and all sorts of trickery. Does anyone have any handy tips for the amateur tog for photographing proper food that people will actually eat?! Lol.

Any help gratefully appreciated :th3:

jev

29-06-2011, 10:48pm

The easiest is to use food that's not completely cooked. Pasta for example looks much better on pictures when it's severely undercooked. Replace with properly cooked pasta before you start eating ;).

Use a lot of moisture and lighting to make things glimmer. Glycerin, especially when sprayed from a bottle, works wonders but makes the food uneatable. Similar effects can be made using very thinly sprayed olive-oil mixed with water.

A spray-bottle with water & oil helps to convert that somewhat dull looking dry'ish apple into a fresh fruit you'ld want to bite in.

Hot food tends to cool quickly. Soak some cotton balls and heat'm in the microwave. Put that behind your food to create that "steamy" look. Or use a (modified) capuchino maker to create the steam. Add a light from the back and voila, the food looks hot again!

In general: keep backgrounds clean and light (not white!), make sure your whitebalance is spot on or slightly warm. Use a shallow DOF, don't add eyecatchers in the background. Add props, but don't overdo it. Use low camera angles, low light angles and don't add too much light. Small lights are better than large ones in this case. Don't light from the front (okay, just a tad maybe, say from < 10:00 or > 2:00 when 12:00 is straight into the lens) but your lights should highlight the little details - it should just strike the food to enhance the textures. You're not looking for light, you're looking for shadows. Light from the back too. Good luck!