Food Photography

I have been doing some food photography of late as I was contacted to do a shoot for one of the U of A marketing dept.'s. They will have a chef prep. the food and a stylist well style the food and I just need to show up and shoot. Seems easy enough. The only problem being is I don't do food photography , as I think it is the hardest photography to do so heaven knows why they asked me !! So having to dust off the skill set and get some practice under my belt, have been putting in four hours a day on this as lighting and set up is very time consuming as well as keeping up with teaching the private photography lessons just about everyday and that mom job that keeps cropping up ! So I am sorry I keep letting my time on NPN slide I hope you understand and I will do my best to do better.

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I have figured out a lot about this process as the days go by and I figure out just what the heck I am doing. I do see it improving and getting easier each day as I sort out lighting and Dof and try to and my own touch . But my heart is in my throat everyday as I am shooting and working on these , though it is starting to pass as I relax into it. I have a few weeks to prepare and will be shooting new subjects each day so hopefully I will know what I am doing the day of the shoot !!

Hi Lorna, congrats on the U of A interest. I assume that they've seen your "style" and that's part of what they like. For me several of these are too "artsy" for food. I really like the last blueberry shot (#8), but think it might be improved by including a bit of the pitcher as in the previous shot (#7). I also really like the cupcake shot #3, but would like to see less of an angle on the glass. Best wishes for success.

Mark

Thanks Mark. I am actually quite frustrated with the whole thing and have taken to deleting everything I shot today. The close ups are really just tests shots to see what lens well work best and the real food shots won't look anything like any of these as these are just fun shots to test lighting and lens and angles. I will keep your suggestions in mind , at this point I don't even know what they will have me shooting and the stylist and chef will have a lot of input in how the shots will be done as well. I am sure at some point this will be fun as right now it is not. Need to step back today and start fresh again tomorrow because at this point I might pitch the camera and tri pod out the window. My camera is out for repairs at the worst possible time and I am so hating my new back up camera today!
My husband always jokingly calls me the epitome of a frustrated artist, today though he had better make scarce !

How's the project going Lorna? I feel your pain.

I did all the photos in 120 and 4x5 film for a food book waaaaay back before digital cameras, then drum scanned the chromes and processed them in early Photoshop. Reshoot it all on color print film, scan and process. Then reshoot it all when the AD had a "vision" change and wanted different arrangements and treatments. Proofs of the book showed color shifts in the publisher's CMYK conversions, so got to go back and scan everything into CMYK and do all the processing again in CMYK. Book published after nearly 3 years of banging my head against a moving wall.

"Never more" quoth the Raven.

Hi Hank , OMG that is a lot of work and you had to wait 3 years ! Thankfully I still have lots of time to practice and figure out lighting and angles yet before my big day and it is a good thing because I need it !

So I am slugging away at it everyday while I try to find my comfort zone . I think I prefer flowers !! Will keep at it though. Thanks for the support. Here are some of the new shots.

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And dozens more shots just to many to show. These are from the last two days but no shooting today as I need a break from food. Back at it tomorrow !

Lorna, the new shots are really fine. I especially like 2-4. I like 1 and 5 also, but find myself wishing for a bit more dof. I'd like to see both basil clumps sharp in 1 and enough dof to see the top of the pile clearly in 5. 3 is super, glad I'm not hungry.

Thanks Mark for the feed back !

"...no shooting today as I need a break from food."

That's really the key! After a break you come back with a fresh eye and new energy. Slog on without the break, and it will really affect the outcome. We still do product and art photography, and even there we've had to develop the instinct and the will to step back for a while when things aren't living up to our specs.

There's a marked improvement in this batch, so your experience, experiments and BREAKS have paid off. I bet your client is really getting excited.