Pictures of Food

[user 26]

i love the sprinkling of the sugar over the goodies!
ps the fork is in the photographer's HAND ... ready to dig in!

 

[JBloggs]

i love the sprinkling of the sugar over the goodies!
ps the fork is in the photographer's HAND ... ready to dig in!.

i love the sprinkling of the sugar over the goodies!
ps the fork is in the photographer's HAND ... ready to dig in!

I was thinking the same thing since he said "it must be REAL food"
I was also thinking how we think strawberries should be sliced larger to be more visible (I do anyway) and they look great diced like that.

 

[wfosterphoto]

The funny part is this about William's photo posting - I know that most of us here looked past the photo as a whole and into it and to determing if it was a canoli cream on that french toast. I also was looking for the fork and realized it may have been left out to minimize the image distractions. I like the color contrasts with the tea bags and the tea pot to the berries. Nice..

The funny part is this about William's photo posting - I know that most of us here looked past the photo as a whole and into it and to determing if it was a canoli cream on that french toast. I also was looking for the fork and realized it may have been left out to minimize the image distractions. I like the color contrasts with the tea bags and the tea pot to the berries. Nice.

Thanks for the comments. I should have known someone would notice the absence of the fork. If you read the blog post, you'll know that this is actually a prep shot and was not originally intended to be a final. The fork is in Athena's hand (the innkeeper/chef) ready to place on the plate after the powdered sugar had been sprinkled. What was supposed to be the final image had the fork sitting on the plate, but all of us loved the sugar shaker one so much, we used it instead. The movement of the shaker and the sugar coming out really brought the image to life.
And, yes, after several frames and camera angles, the french toast was eaten by me and my assistant; the major benefit of not spraying the food with hair spray or other "tricks of the trade".
Bill

 

[DaisyMae]

it's a beautiful photo. I did not even notice the fork mising, my eye went straight to what was on the plate and the tea bags on the saucer. I think i really like the sugar coming out of the shaker better than i think i would have liked the fork.

 

[Breakfast Diva]

Welcome!!

Nice photo. Thanks for the all the tips. I'm working currently on food photos, so any help is greatly appreciated.
I really like the action of the photo.

 

[Country Girl]

Welcome!!!

I have been frustratingly learning how to shoot food for my website. It has taken so much time and so many shots to get one photo! It's amazing to me what I miss when looking at the plate of food and what appears in the photo. I think lighting is the key!!! Thanks for the tips!!

 

[gillumhouse]

I'm a constant reader of this forum but don't chime in very often, so I probably should qualify myself for this post. I'm primarily a professional photographer, and food is one of my areas of practice. I began doing editorial food photography (for magazines, etc.) which led into doing the same for restaurants and commercial clients. In addition to photography, I have a second business building websites for bed and breakfasts. Just today, I put a blog post up about a food photo I made for a recent website client; the Hanford House Inn in Sutter Creek.

All that being said, here's some info for anyone who wants to make some improvements to their food photography.
First of all, nearly every photo in this thread has one major flaw: they look too flat. The culprit...on camera flash. Using a basic point and shoot or even a DSLR with the flash on top, the light is all coming from about the same direction as the camera. This fills in all the nooks and crannies and completely eliminates the texture of the food making it look flat and boring. The primary goal of food photography is to make the food look appetizing. Hopefully the following tips will help your next photography project.
Rule 1: Get your light off the camera. If you don't have studio lights, consider using other light sources like windows, but know that controlling the light can be more difficult with windows. Light your food from the back to show texture, fill light where needed from the front using reflectors. As a point of reference, the photo on the blog post is done with 4 studio strobes and 3 reflectors in the Hanford House dining room. Getting everything just right took more than 60 exposures before we put the food on the table.
Rule 2: Use real food. You're not making an ad for Chili's, you're showing your actual product. That being said, get everything set first, then place fresh food in the set.
Rule 3: Don't try to make food photos during breakfast. Focus on your work, then set aside some time in the afternoon for food photography. It's time consuming and done right, it will require your constant attention and plenty of time.
Rule 4: Get low and get close. Overhead shots are boring and unappetizing. Low angle shots show the food much better.
Rule 5: Learn how to post process your photos in Photoshop. Make the colors pop, sharpen as necessary and crop creatively to make the images interesting.
Rule 6: Placement is everything! For some shoots I hire a food stylist who specializes in creating the set. All I have to do is light it and shoot it.
Sometimes food photography can be very frustrating because it doesn't look the way you want it to. Don't worry, like someone else said above, it's an art people go to school for. You can either live with your results or hire a professional. Hopefully the things listed above will help improve your pix just a bit.
Bill Foster.

I also thank you for the tips. I am going to be attempting to shoot some food photos also, but most urgent right now is photos of my husband's paintings - most of which are currently under glass already. colored pencil and watercolor are his mediums. I am going to try going outside with easel and tripod to avoid the flash.
Ammended to ask: would shooting from a distance using the zoom help to keep reflection off the glass (as in seeing the camera and me in the glass)?

 

[wfosterphoto]

I'm a constant reader of this forum but don't chime in very often, so I probably should qualify myself for this post. I'm primarily a professional photographer, and food is one of my areas of practice. I began doing editorial food photography (for magazines, etc.) which led into doing the same for restaurants and commercial clients. In addition to photography, I have a second business building websites for bed and breakfasts. Just today, I put a blog post up about a food photo I made for a recent website client; the Hanford House Inn in Sutter Creek.

All that being said, here's some info for anyone who wants to make some improvements to their food photography.
First of all, nearly every photo in this thread has one major flaw: they look too flat. The culprit...on camera flash. Using a basic point and shoot or even a DSLR with the flash on top, the light is all coming from about the same direction as the camera. This fills in all the nooks and crannies and completely eliminates the texture of the food making it look flat and boring. The primary goal of food photography is to make the food look appetizing. Hopefully the following tips will help your next photography project.
Rule 1: Get your light off the camera. If you don't have studio lights, consider using other light sources like windows, but know that controlling the light can be more difficult with windows. Light your food from the back to show texture, fill light where needed from the front using reflectors. As a point of reference, the photo on the blog post is done with 4 studio strobes and 3 reflectors in the Hanford House dining room. Getting everything just right took more than 60 exposures before we put the food on the table.
Rule 2: Use real food. You're not making an ad for Chili's, you're showing your actual product. That being said, get everything set first, then place fresh food in the set.
Rule 3: Don't try to make food photos during breakfast. Focus on your work, then set aside some time in the afternoon for food photography. It's time consuming and done right, it will require your constant attention and plenty of time.
Rule 4: Get low and get close. Overhead shots are boring and unappetizing. Low angle shots show the food much better.
Rule 5: Learn how to post process your photos in Photoshop. Make the colors pop, sharpen as necessary and crop creatively to make the images interesting.
Rule 6: Placement is everything! For some shoots I hire a food stylist who specializes in creating the set. All I have to do is light it and shoot it.
Sometimes food photography can be very frustrating because it doesn't look the way you want it to. Don't worry, like someone else said above, it's an art people go to school for. You can either live with your results or hire a professional. Hopefully the things listed above will help improve your pix just a bit.
Bill Foster.

I also thank you for the tips. I am going to be attempting to shoot some food photos also, but most urgent right now is photos of my husband's paintings - most of which are currently under glass already. colored pencil and watercolor are his mediums. I am going to try going outside with easel and tripod to avoid the flash.
Ammended to ask: would shooting from a distance using the zoom help to keep reflection off the glass (as in seeing the camera and me in the glass)?
.

I also thank you for the tips. I am going to be attempting to shoot some food photos also, but most urgent right now is photos of my husband's paintings - most of which are currently under glass already. colored pencil and watercolor are his mediums. I am going to try going outside with easel and tripod to avoid the flash.
Ammended to ask: would shooting from a distance using the zoom help to keep reflection off the glass (as in seeing the camera and me in the glass)?

Probably not. The best way to do it is to remove the glass altogether. If that's not possible, a polarizing filter will help. Otherwise, if it's not your reflection in the glass, it will likely be something else.
The other problem you'll run into with point and shoot cameras zooming in on something like that from a distance is loss of image quality. On all point and shoot cameras, you have two levels of zoom; optical and digital. Your optical zoom is achieved by moving the lenses themselves to gain magnification. Digital zoom is actually cropping in your data to show a larger part of the image. Digital zoom actually is a reduction in image quality because you're not using as many pixels to get the same image. It's just like if you took a picture, cropped a small portion of it and blew it up bigger than what it originally was.
For capturing something with detail and color nuances like water color and other artwork, you want to preserve as much of the original data as possible, so don't back up too far. Lastly, what you want to do is make sure you have the camera exactly parallel to the artwork to keep everything in focus and to keep it from keystoning.
Bill

 

[gillumhouse]

I'm a constant reader of this forum but don't chime in very often, so I probably should qualify myself for this post. I'm primarily a professional photographer, and food is one of my areas of practice. I began doing editorial food photography (for magazines, etc.) which led into doing the same for restaurants and commercial clients. In addition to photography, I have a second business building websites for bed and breakfasts. Just today, I put a blog post up about a food photo I made for a recent website client; the Hanford House Inn in Sutter Creek.

All that being said, here's some info for anyone who wants to make some improvements to their food photography.
First of all, nearly every photo in this thread has one major flaw: they look too flat. The culprit...on camera flash. Using a basic point and shoot or even a DSLR with the flash on top, the light is all coming from about the same direction as the camera. This fills in all the nooks and crannies and completely eliminates the texture of the food making it look flat and boring. The primary goal of food photography is to make the food look appetizing. Hopefully the following tips will help your next photography project.
Rule 1: Get your light off the camera. If you don't have studio lights, consider using other light sources like windows, but know that controlling the light can be more difficult with windows. Light your food from the back to show texture, fill light where needed from the front using reflectors. As a point of reference, the photo on the blog post is done with 4 studio strobes and 3 reflectors in the Hanford House dining room. Getting everything just right took more than 60 exposures before we put the food on the table.
Rule 2: Use real food. You're not making an ad for Chili's, you're showing your actual product. That being said, get everything set first, then place fresh food in the set.
Rule 3: Don't try to make food photos during breakfast. Focus on your work, then set aside some time in the afternoon for food photography. It's time consuming and done right, it will require your constant attention and plenty of time.
Rule 4: Get low and get close. Overhead shots are boring and unappetizing. Low angle shots show the food much better.
Rule 5: Learn how to post process your photos in Photoshop. Make the colors pop, sharpen as necessary and crop creatively to make the images interesting.
Rule 6: Placement is everything! For some shoots I hire a food stylist who specializes in creating the set. All I have to do is light it and shoot it.
Sometimes food photography can be very frustrating because it doesn't look the way you want it to. Don't worry, like someone else said above, it's an art people go to school for. You can either live with your results or hire a professional. Hopefully the things listed above will help improve your pix just a bit.
Bill Foster.

I also thank you for the tips. I am going to be attempting to shoot some food photos also, but most urgent right now is photos of my husband's paintings - most of which are currently under glass already. colored pencil and watercolor are his mediums. I am going to try going outside with easel and tripod to avoid the flash.
Ammended to ask: would shooting from a distance using the zoom help to keep reflection off the glass (as in seeing the camera and me in the glass)?
.

I also thank you for the tips. I am going to be attempting to shoot some food photos also, but most urgent right now is photos of my husband's paintings - most of which are currently under glass already. colored pencil and watercolor are his mediums. I am going to try going outside with easel and tripod to avoid the flash.
Ammended to ask: would shooting from a distance using the zoom help to keep reflection off the glass (as in seeing the camera and me in the glass)?

Probably not. The best way to do it is to remove the glass altogether. If that's not possible, a polarizing filter will help. Otherwise, if it's not your reflection in the glass, it will likely be something else.
The other problem you'll run into with point and shoot cameras zooming in on something like that from a distance is loss of image quality. On all point and shoot cameras, you have two levels of zoom; optical and digital. Your optical zoom is achieved by moving the lenses themselves to gain magnification. Digital zoom is actually cropping in your data to show a larger part of the image. Digital zoom actually is a reduction in image quality because you're not using as many pixels to get the same image. It's just like if you took a picture, cropped a small portion of it and blew it up bigger than what it originally was.
For capturing something with detail and color nuances like water color and other artwork, you want to preserve as much of the original data as possible, so don't back up too far. Lastly, what you want to do is make sure you have the camera exactly parallel to the artwork to keep everything in focus and to keep it from keystoning.
Bill
.

Thanks. I have a Sony DSC-H2 digital 6.0 pixels.

 

[Country Girl]

This is perfect timing. I just spent hours doing some food photos. I really want to add an additional breakfast page to my website. I'd appreciate any feedback.

.

This is perfect timing. I just spent hours doing some food photos. I really want to add an additional breakfast page to my website. I'd appreciate any feedback.

Breakfast Diva! I love these photos. They look very professional. And I love your dishes and tablecloth combination. Well done. The outdoor setting really shows off the food and creates a very nice atmosphere.

 

[JBloggs]

Inn Cuisine has some gorgeous pics again from Big Mill!
http://inncuisine.com/

 

[Proud Texan]

Inn Cuisine has some gorgeous pics again from Big Mill!
http://inncuisine.com/.

Inn Cuisine has some gorgeous pics again from Big Mill!
http://inncuisine.com/

[FONT= 'Lucida Grande']We like this site. It's really good for presentation ideas. As someone said in another thread, sometimes all it takes is a nicer presentation of the same old- same old to get oos and aahs from your guests.[/FONT]

 

[Willowpondgj]

Yum! I'm hungry....what are the blueberry pastries? Excellent photos!.

Yum! I'm hungry....what are the blueberry pastries? Excellent photos!

Thanks!
The blueberry pastries are puff pastry I've cut from heart shape cookie cutter, opened up, then some Bavarian cream, blueberries or any fruit, put the top half back on and sprinkled with powdered sugar. Super easy and our guests are so impressed.
.

Bavarian cream...care to share the recipe????

 

[One Day]

I'm not seeing the pics Diva posted

 

[Breakfast Diva]

I'm not seeing the pics Diva posted.

I'm not seeing the pics Diva posted

Swirt, is that because I took them out of my little "album" for download?

 

[swirt]

I'm not seeing the pics Diva posted.

I'm not seeing the pics Diva posted

Swirt, is that because I took them out of my little "album" for download?
.

I'm not seeing the pics Diva posted

Swirt, is that because I took them out of my little "album" for download?

Yes, when you upload photos they go into your space on the server, if you remove them from your files, then they aren't there for the rest of us to see if you inserted them in a post.