Workshop: Food photography in the studio
- elle walker
- Feb 1, 2019
- 5 min read
Updated: Apr 24, 2019
Studio
Today's workshop was all about food. Lovely, lovely food. There was a choice of food and drink items to photographs but for me, there was only one thing: gin. It exerted its gravitational pull on me and nothing else was considered, not even the lemon muffins.
Food photography is about creating an image to tantalise the viewer to the point that they wish to purchase and consume said food. A variety of tricks can be employed by the photographer to enhance the desirability of the food. For example, fruit can be sprayed with a solution of glycerine and water to make it look fresher and more succulent. A dish of olives could be sprinkled with olive oil to provide a glistening sheen which draws the viewer in to the image.
Tools
Canon 70 D
Natural light
Assortment of food and related items
Assortment of light modifiers
Settings
ISO 100
f/4.5
1/30 second
42 mm
The beauty of working in a studio means that it is a controlled environment. Lighting, placement of models or products and the camera itself can be carefully managed. This a great advantage over working on location where different types of artificial light, restaurant staff and physical obstructions likes tables and chairs provide obstacles to overcome. In this case, the only tool strictly outside my control was the natural light. Oh, and time itself, as I had a limited time in which to produce my image. ISO 100 was chosen to keep the noise to an absolute minimum and using f/4.5 ensured the entire image was kept in focus. The focal length varied, depending on how close I need to get to the product.
Process
Against the less than salubrious backdrop of a car park and a bin, the late winter daylight was absorbed by a black card.
The weak daylight gives great diffused light but working with natural daylight presents its own challenges, namely it's constantly changing which means that a range of tools are required to control the available light according to your needs and at some point, the late afternoon winter sun - our light source of choice - will disappear entirely. Luckily, nature was on our side and within our allotted time we still had plenty of available light.
Initial adjustments were made via Lightroom: exposure, highlights, shadows and the HSL panel to boost the intensity of the colour of the lemons (yeah, I know the bottle refers to limes but I was thinking of those tasty looking lemon muffins). When I reviewed my contact sheet there was a comment about the hole in the chopping board, so that was removed in Photoshop using the clone stamp.
To achieve the lighting, I held a mirror in front of me and my trusty assistant used the torch function on her iPhone to bring a little extra light onto the label of the bottle. It's very simple but the black background adds a little drama and keeps unwanted light out of the frame.
This shoot, I don't really want to jinx myself, but it felt so simple and, dare I say it, easy. I believed the 'less is more' approach was right for the shoot and didn't want to. over. complicate it with a large number of props was overly complicated editing. I took about a dozen photographs of pretty much the same set up, only making minor adjustments in the placement of the bottle, lemons and so forth. With so many of my shoots I feel like I'm 80% happy, with the remaining 20% wishing I'd tried something different or muttering that "I'll fix it in post" but this really clicked. When I had my 'keeper' shot, I stopped shooting, not wanting to proceed with the shooting for the sake of it mindset, as I was eager to start editing.
No behind the scenes tricks were required here but I believe that the image is successful; the brightness of the label against the black backdrop and the sliver of the reflection in the shiny knife blade all help the bring attention to the label. Once the brand is in the viewer's mind, hopefully it will stay there until the product is purchased.
Looking at this image would definitely entice me to buy the product. Another image could have an open empty bottle of the product, alongside a glass, perhaps with ice and condensation running down the glass which would signify a mouth-watering, delicious drink. Overall, I'm very happy with how this turned out, although next time, I'll use limes and a sharper knife.
Technical
A risk assessment was completed as shown below.
I completed another food shoot with natural lighting at home.
I noticed that the lighting in my living room in the morning was beautifully diffused and soft. I decided on coffee and cookies as the light was a perfect interpretation of soft light and a quiet morning.
Because the light was very diffused, it wasn't strong enough to light the far side (the left of the image) of the food, so a variety of modifiers were used. A silver reflector was used to bounce back the light. A diffuser - a voile curtain panel - helped to disguise the background.
ISO 200 is the minimum on my camera, so this is the default option. As I was using an 18 mm - 55 mm lens, I had to be quite close to the food in order. to get the composition I wanted. The shutter speed was chosen for the ability to get the image sharp whilst providing adequate light. Overall, I think this works although next time I would move a little further away from the porch, where the light was streaming in, in order not to have the voile panel to disguise the unappealing background. Additionally, the jar of raspberry jam is there to highlight the fact that the cookies were raspberry and white chocolate. I turned the jar around as I thought the label was too distracting, but in hindsight it doesn't really add much to the image.
Another shoot was chocolate chip cookies, this time, capturing early afternoon natural light.
This time, no light modifiers were used. I think this is a 'cleaner' image but it also lacks any punch.
There are shadows but these are minimal. The colour tones are all shades of brown which looks a little drab; a bright colour would have added some extra appeal.
The dark food photography I like was created here.
A black V card was used to create the dark background and a black cloth (an old skirt!) created the base.
The shutter speed was quite slow because the black surroundings absorbing all of the light. Additional light on the top of the cookies was provide by the torch from my iPhone.
This image really meets the dark photography brief: the composition is interesting and leads the eye to the glass of milk at the rear of the frame, it shows the cookies in an appealing way and it really makes me want to eat the food!
This was a successful exercise for me as I was able to gain a greater understanding of how to control the natural light using a variety of modifiers, depending on the time of day.
This is an exercise I will repeat again in the future.
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