fettuccine paglia e fieno - styled by Dario Milano

Hey gang, this is a dish I styled some time ago; it’s a very simple recipe and the styling is nothing out of this world, but I just thought it would have helped me to ” illustrate ” a bit better what food styling is all about, before I move on to give you a little piece of legal information.

But first thing first, today we are talking purely about food styling, which is different thing from prop styling; I know sometimes there is a bit of confusion on this topic and that’s why I want to clarify: food stylist and prop stylist are two different jobs, a food stylist generally comes from a home economics university degree or, like myself, from a hospitality career, while a prop stylist is more likely to come from an interior design type of background. One plays with the food, the other with props and backgrounds.

Not always there is a budget for both a food and a prop stylist in a photo shoot; there are distinctions to be made of course, advertising food photography and editorial food photography don’t work exactly in the same way and the budgets are usually higher in advertising. And then there is a lot of product and commercial ( food ) photography where a stylist is seen as an unnecessary luxury ; in such a circumstance the photographer is multi task and the client becomes a bit of an art director.

Back to the image on top: the fettuccine pasta is about 2-3 minutes undercooked, and so are the veggies; the veggies are iced down to prevent from discolouring, while the pasta is not washed or else it would loose its gluey starch, making it much more difficult to nest it and having it keep its shape. The cherry tomatoes are scattered around seemingly randomly but with an eye for contrast and composition; same with the fresh dill. Finally a little drizzle of olive oil here and there is meant to freshen up the dish, give some shine and make it look more vibrant.

That’s about it as far as food styling is concerned here; but we all know that even though nowadays there is a major trend toward making the food look more natural and realistic, the food stylist applies ‘make-up’ to the food, to make it as photogenic as possible, disregarding the taste which has no influence on the illustration; so many people ask : ” with all this manipulation is the food even real anymore?

Where does the line between true representation and misleading labelling begin and end?

There is a law in the U.S.A. regarding truth in advertising. It requires that advertisements about food show the actual food item that a consumer would be able to buy and eat. However, the food surrounding the item being advertised can be artificial; on the other hand an editorial photo can contain a lot to create a certain mood and food used to illustrate cookbooks or magazine articles can be faked.

As for Australia, the advertising & marketing communications code of the australian association of national advertisers (AANA) states that ” Advertising or Marketing Communications for Food or Beverage Products shall be truthful and honest, shall not be or be designed to be misleading or deceptive or otherwise contravene Prevailing Community Standards“.

So if you are working as a food stylist on an advertising campaign you might be interested to know that in March 2004 Cadbury Schweppes was ordered to re-label its Cottee’s banana mango cordial after the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission complained that the label – bursting with pictures of ripe mangos and bananas – was misleading, given the cordial didn’t contain fruit at all.

The Federal Court rejected Cadbury Schweppes’ argument that the words “flavoured cordial” were enough to tell consumers the cordial didn’t contain any fruit. The cordial has since been removed from sale.

You’ve been warned: the hat-trick is cool if it is used to ” beautify ” the food but must never deceive the consumer.

Dario Milano, professional food photographer and food stylist

I read a quote somewhere : “ Shooting food is like shooting a beautiful woman: they both take lots of prep time and neither lasts very long on set” . While this is obviously supposed to be a funny joke, it’s certainly true that professional food photography requires professional food styling; and food styling is required

-1- to make the food look good for the camera and

-2- to make it look good for the duration of a photo shoot.

Food is perishable, this is the fact; some foods in particular demand special handling skills that only a professional stylist could perform: ice cream ( dessert in general ) is the first item that comes to mind but, on the other hand, anything that has been cooked won’t keep a crisp and natural look for very long either; not to mention fresh herbs, sauces, deep fried aliments… everything really.

Food has to be treated with respect and expertise, that’s it; and the food stylist’s job is in fact to enhance, not misrepresent, products.

There are a lot of urban legends and unconfirmed rumors about some unconventional food styling practices; personally, I never substituted motor oil to maple syrup, or screwed a pizza to the table ( I’m not kidding, check this video out ), but I do have a short list of useful techniques and tips to share with you ;

1) fresh herbs ( mostly used as garnishes ) and salads: soak’em in iced water, then wrap them in a wet paper towel ( I use the blue chux ) and keep them in the fridge until ready to use.

2) rice and noodles : use a wet paper towel ( stuck under to help give shape ) to plate rice or noodles.

3) steaks : a folded up piece of paper towel, a few layers thick, placed under a steak will keep the juices from messing up the plate.

4) steamy rice : to get rice to hold its steam use a couple of tampons soaked in cold water and microwaved.

5) tomato sauce : if you don’t want it to run everywhere, mix it with some tomato paste so it stays perfectly in place, and then put it exactly where you want it with a syringe.

6) sauces : if you want a perfect drip of sauce shining on the side of your dessert, use a small piece of soft wax shaped like a drop and put it in place, then coat the drop with your sauce.

7) cereals : breakfast cereals sitting in milk become soggy and look no good. Try substituting the milk with heavy cream ( some even say glue ) to have the flakes stay put and stay crisp.

8) ice cream : it melts, and fast. In editorial shots a bit of melt is ok because it looks real; but in product shots, it’s got to look perfect and usually coloured mashed potato is used as a substitute.

9) lasagne : to avoid it collapsing at the wrong moment, is often uncooked and layered with cardboard, which is hidden by the meaty sauce.

10) burger buns : sesame seeds are hand-glued on the buns using tweezers for even spacing.

11) drinks : plastic ice cubes are often used instead of the real ones because they don’t melt. To get that frosted look on the glass, they are sprayed with a dulling spray and water. Most alcoholic beverage shots have water added to them to make them more transparent so the backlighting will work better.

12) desserts : shaving cream is sometimes used to fake real cream

13) shop like a stylist : buy the freshest ingredients and make sure you have enough backup. Perishable groceries should be purchased the day of the shot.

14) be organized and keep the set clean : never open any container or drain liquids from food on or over the set: cleaning up can be very time-consuming.

15) borrow appetite appeal : many products do not look good (but taste excellent) – so add appetite appeal through additional props or even other products. To avoid confusion add the text ‘serving suggestion’.

These are just some tricks I use or I have heard of; hit the comments and let us know about your personal food styling tips and I shall edit this post with an update including all useful piece of advice!

Read more about food styling in these previous posts:

About being creative (…and keeping it cheap )

Prop Styling : great props make great food photography

Food photography and food styling workshop: what to expect

Hey gang, we are talking food photography on location here, actually to be more precise we’re talking about food photography on location for restaurants: how does it work, what do you bring, who is doing what and how much can you get done in one day ?

I’ll try to answer these and a few other questions but, generally speaking, there are no set rules. Editorial food photography is different: there is a publisher, an art director, a food stylist a photographer and an editor ( plus many others ); but when you do on location work for a private business you might find yourself involved in almost all these activities, even more so in small businesses. So it very much depends on you: the client often doesn’t have a proper idea of how a photo shoot works, neither he is required to; the client has a need and he has expectations, and it’s up to you to own the project and translate both into a series of compelling images.

So this is how it kinda happens: you get contacted say to take a number of shots for a menu launch, or a website or maybe for a new opening; great , straight away you gonna have to be ready to answer a lot of questions and you must be prepared to make some crucial questions too. As a professional food photographer you want to be briefed as accurately as possible on the job ahead; it will then be your responsibility to make sure you meet the client’s expectations.

Assignments can be very diverse: sometimes you’ll be required to be more creative, some other times you’ll be a mere technicians having to follow a pretty rigorous guideline; in both circumstances it’s important that you know where you’re heading to, what’s the type of ” look ” the client wants and what’s the message he is trying to send out to the public.

Once the goals have been illustrated and everybody’s role has been made clear you can work out what kind of gear you gonna need, how long the job is gonna take, if an assistant is needed and if there is a budget for it, how much editing is gonna be required in post processing and so on; these elements and the terms of the licensing agreement will determine your compensation.

Now I don’t mean to scare you away…..but, since I mentioned the ” terms of the licensing agreement “, I will just give you a little piece of information in this regard, which I am sure , at some stage in your life, will come in handy; so bare with me.

Under the australian copyright law ( readers from countries should check the relevant legislation ), there is no system of registration for copyright protection in Australia : the protection is free and automatic. A photograph is protected by copyright automatically from the moment it is taken.

The copyright notice ( which consists of the symbol ©, followed by the name of the copyright owner and the year the work was first made or published, for example: © John Citizen 2005 ) is not required for protection in Australia and in most other countries, but it notifies people that the work is protected and identifies the person claiming the rights.

For photographs, unless there is an agreement to the contrary, the general rule is that the photographer is the first owner of copyright.

There are, however, a number of exceptions to this general rule, and more specifically, with regards to commissioned photographs where a person who is not the

photographer’s employer (a client) pays a photographer to take a photograph, all you need to know is this :

For photographs taken on or after 30 July 1998, the general rule on ownership depends on the purpose for which the photographs were taken:

• if the photographs were taken for “private or domestic purposes” (such as family portraits, or wedding photographs), the first owner of copyright in them is the client, unless the photographer and client agree otherwise; however

• if they were taken for any other purpose (e.g. commercial shots), the photographer will be the first owner of copyright, unless the photographer and client agree otherwise.

So there you go, if a client ( read restaurant here ) hires you to take photographs of their menu, you retain the rights to your images and, as the copyright owner, you  can assign (sell) or license (permit others to use) your rights, with or without limitations (such as the type of use, or period of time), and with or without conditions (such as payment).

When I am hired by a restaurant/hotel/cafe’ usually the job comprises between 6 and 12 shots of finished / preparation dishes from the menu, kind os 2-3 dishes from each course, at least one shot of the main dining room and maybe a couple of portraits of the owner himself or of the chef ( or just the stuff in uniform ); let’s say around 15 images , including multiple set ups for different angles and backdrops. Depending on the budget and on how much styling I am required to carry out I will decide if I am gonna work alone or if I need an assistant; most times I’ll have one of the chefs working alongside me and I’ll just touch up the food to make it look good for the camera, but I have been hired to also prep and style the food from scratch, and this is obviously more time consuming.

I’d say 10 to 15 pictures is a reasonable figure to give to a client. What type of equipment do you need to execute such a task? I generally bring along my set of (2) Profoto D1, one big soft box for the key light, one umbrella, a couple of speedlights with snoot and grids and at least one reflector. The soft box has a nice and warm light, which wraps around the subject beautifully; place it anywhere between 10 and 2 o’clock and you’ll have a very natural looking kind of side-backlight which is just perfect for food photography. Use a reflector opposite the soft box to bounce light back at your subject and maybe point a speedlight at a 45 degree angle to the ceiling for some extra fill; this is how the first two images were taken… pretty easy no?

The third image has just the backlight coming from camera right and the reflector, while the speedlight is partially illuminating the backgroung about 7-8 feet away.

For the last image I had the softbox camera right at 5 o’clock, no reflector, a speedlight bouncing off the white ceiling from camera left and another speedlight, gridded, at 11 o’clock, to create that highlight on the left ( for you ) hand side of the girl’s face; this is called a separation light ( separating the subject from the background ).

Speak soon gang, hope you enjoy this post; shoot me your questions in the comments!

Dario Milano, professional food photographer.

Hey gang, here is my recipe for the month of July; it’s an italian classic revisited : gnocchi.

What’s absolutely new here is that the gnocchi dough comprises a percentage of eggplant puree which gives the dish a more complex and smoky flavour; if you love both gnocchi and eggplants, like myself, this is a must try recipe at home.

I’ll give you the recipe first and then we’ll discuss the image.

For the gnocchi

Boil the potatoes ( yellow potatoes, i.e. desiree )with the skin on in salted water ( start with cold water ), until cooked through, but not falling apart .

TIP: if you have a pressure cooker, use it! 15-20 minutes since it starts boiling;

Peel the spuds while they’re still hot and pass ‘em through the potato masher directly onto a flat tray;  spread the mash evenly onto the tray ( without pressing it down ) to better let the steam out ( we need to have a drier potato mix since the eggplant puree is pretty moist ).

Set aside and let it cool down.

Roast two eggplants, skin on,  over open flame until all the skin is burnt and softened : set aside and let cool down.

Peel the eggplants and sit ‘em in a pasta drainer with a weight on top for 40 minutes, to get rid of the bitter vegetation water.

Puree the eggplants with 2 egg yolks ; pass the mix through a fine chinoix to loose any residual bits of skin.

To make the gnocchi, assemble 250 gr of mashed potatoes, 50 gr of eggplant mix, 80 gr plain flour, 45 gr finely grated pecorino cheese, 5 gr of salt and 1/2 a nutmeg freshly grounded; work the dough by hand as quickly as you can just to bring all the ingredients together.

Roll the dough ( a wooden surface would be ideal…) to the desired thickness and cut the gnocchi with a spatula or a knife. If you respect the measurements I

am giving you, you should not need to add flour to roll the gnocchi; just a pinch after you’ve cut them, to separate them better.

Jump the gnocchi in hot boiling water for just as long as it takes them to float on the surface; then plunge them in cold water and ice to stop the cooking process.

Drain the gnocchi off the ice and water mix and place’em in a container, adding a spoon of vegetable oil to prevent them from sticking together; refrigerate until needed.

For the sauce

Make a quick ” napoletana ” style tomato sauce: extra virgin olive oil, sweat off 1/2 a onion  and couple cloves of finely chopped garlic (eggplants like garlic …. and so do you ); season the onion and garlic.

Add the tomatoes; either tin tomatoes or fresh ones are fine. If you use fresh tomatoes, make sure you choose ripe ones and don’t discard the skin which is rich of very healthy carotenoids.

When the sauce is almost ready, add a spoon and a half of the remaining eggplant puree; this will reinforce the eggplant flavour of the gnocchi. Balance is the key here: the eggplant mix is quite intense in flavour, so add a little at a time and keep tasting: you don’t want it to overpower the tomato base.

Once the sauce is ready, dive the gnocchi in hot boiling water for 30 seconds, then toss’em with the sauce and serve smoking hot; grate plenty of the pecorino cheese and finish with fresh chopped basil and a bit of olive oil.

Tomatoes and eggplants are such a perfect combination, I hope you’ll enjoy this.

Now, regarding the picture: I used a big soft box placed at 11 o’clock ( camera left ) as main light: it’s not pointing straight down at the table, but kind of above it; it’s a kind of a back/side light , quite dramatic, and it captures well the texture of the food and the consistency of the other elements.

Then I also used a strip light, placed at 7 o’clock ( camera left ) to fill in a bit of shadows and to create some reflection on the bottle and glass.

I didn’t use any reflector this time not to alter the contrast to the scene.

Camera settings: ISO 200, 1/250 sec, f 5

That’s about it as far as self promotion goes; now, this upcoming event gives me the chance to talk about what YOU should expect from attending a food photography/styling workshop, be it the one I’m teaching or any other one, doesn’t matter.

I’ve always wanted to write about this topic, because I’ve attended a couple of workshops in the past and I’ve been very disappointed.

Food photography and food styling are very complex subjects and they can be dealt with in so many different ways; usually workshops take place in an interval of time of 3 to 6 hours, therefore time is an issue and should not be wasted. Expect you tutor to be extremely organised, there’s no room for improvisation; the workshop program should be outlined in a brochure or on the web, props and backdrops should have been previously sorted to match and complement whatever food is going to be shot, and any food preparation should be out of the way, unless a specific styling technique was to be demonstrated.

For the very short workshops ( 3-4 hours ) I’d expect the lighting gear to be already out and ready to roll; there will still be a chance to show students how to set up an umbrella, a soft box or a grid snoot in between shots.

Expect some written info and some lighting diagrams pre arranged for you, that describe what you gonna be doing, so that later on you’ll be able to take that information away being now more free to focus on what is going on in front of you.

Security in the studio is definitely something to be covered, considering the amount of watts you’ll be playing with; once again some written information awaiting you would be appropriate.

The students should be encouraged to bring their own cameras, mainly for reference shots; I wouldn’t expect everybody to go home with perfect photos for their Portfolio, as this requires a lot more time than it usually is available during a one day workshop; if you have some well pre-arranged notes and you take hips of reference shots, you’ll make the most out of the class and you’ll have lots of time to practice at home.

Having said all that…. what should you really expect from a great workshop? In my opinion, as an attendee, I would want the tutor to share their personal style and approach to food photography and styling: how do they come up with ideas, where do they get the inspiration from? what different lighting set ups do they choose for different types of food and why? I’d want to know about their workflow A to Z, I’d want to know where they sort out the props and stuff like this. A technique can be demonstrated once or a million times, but then it’s up to your interpretation; there are so many resources on the internet, magazines and books that you can spend all your life learning technical stuff but, like cooking, photography is not just about recipes, it’s got a lot to do with personal taste, and finding a style you like is the best way to start learning and developing your own.

They used to say about chefs that they never gave their recipes away and you had to steel their secrets working you ass butt off; this is no longer true, nowadays professionals share their skills with the world to create a network that hopefully one day will become their sustenance. So expect to learn some technicalities, but most of all expect to go home knowing that tomorrow you’ll tackle that assignment with a new methodic approach.

Food photography and food styling workshops in Sydney by Food Pixels

Hey gang, I took this picture a while back when the only fancy gear I could afford was a second hand Nikon SB 28 and a 32″ silver reflective umbrella; those were my first toys : one light and one modifier. And there are a lot of cool things one can do with so little and inexpensive gear; which is the theme of our post today.

By the way, since we mentioned money, you can get yourself a used SB 28 and a 32″ silver reflective umbrella for just under $ 150; you can call it a bargain, considering how many options this simple set up is gonna play for you.

Going back to the picture above, I made a little lighting diagram that shows you exactly how it was taken:

Light is coming from the back, casting a shadow in front of the pasta bowl; the white foam reflector bounces the light back to the subject, partly filling in that shadow, so that it’s now no longer black and we can see some details in it. The flag blocks the light between the bowl and the top end of the table, darkening this area which otherwise would be very bright, being closer to the light source.

My aperture is down at f 1.4 to isolate the subject against the background and to draw the viewer’s attention to the focusing point.

With such a wide aperture, and the close distance light-subject, the flash power is set at just 1/32; remember, it’s the aperture that controls the flash, while the shutter speed controls the ambient light. I don’t remember my shutter speed at the time, but usually when I shoot in the studio and late at night I synch at 1/250 which is the fastest shutter speed my camera synchs at. This means that even if I was shooting with the room light on, the camera wouldn’t pick up any ambient light at all ( in most cases, but always worth checking …).

I have a bunch of questions from Anh of anhsfoodblog in Melbourne; she asked me to write a tutorial about how to shoot food at night, in absence of natural light and with limited lighting gear. First question: ” Is flash necessary ? “.

Well….no….but yes. No because, unless you were shooting in a dark cave, you can white balance your light source correctly and get a proper exposure. More about White Balance here.

At this stage you might also want to refresh your memory on the Kelvin Scale and the concept of colour temperature; I talked about it in this previous post.

YES you need a flash because it’s a lot of fun to play with and it gives you control. A flash is portable and can be placed pretty much anywhere, it can be powered up or down, it can be used as a small and harsh light source or it can be diffused and become a big light source. And because it’s a discontinuous light source, a flash can freeze motion, as you can observe in the previous post about Bright Field Lighting.

Second question ” Should I invest in those light boxes that a lot of food bloggers have raved about? ” . If you mean the so called light tents, hell NO! get an umbrella instead, for as little as $ 36; the light tent gets rid of all shadows, the contrast is highly reduced and pictures are pretty flat, with no real mood. I love my 32″ silver reflective umbrella because it’s so small and easy to move around; and if you put it close enough to the food it gives a nice soft light

I took this picture today pretty much with the same set up seen above; only, in this case, light is coming from the side ( camera right ). Side light is particularly great when you want to capture the texture of food; which is not really our case here, as the cherries’ skin is extremely smooth and shiny.

But you can appreciate how soft the light is and how there are no reflections on the cherries; this thanks to the fact that the umbrella is just inches away from the the fruit… you know, the bigger the light source, the softer is the light.

Third question : ” Any tips on how to style for a night/studio shot at home? (eg color scheme, background material etc.). ”

Not really…. I mean, food styling can get as much complicated as you want; my suggestion is to keep it simple and nail the lighting first; composition is also very important. Styling is highly subjective and requires lots of experience; it’s not just plating the food, but also choosing and matching the various props, surfaces and fabrics. Generally speaking, make sure whatever shows in the frame actually belongs there; and use common sense : 4 cups one inside each other make no sense to me …. if you know what I mean.

And look for contrast in the scene: no contrast = boring.

Fourth question : ” Lenses recommendation? ” .  Yes, if I had to pick just one lens for food photography, that would be the 50 mm f 1.4 : it’s small, light, not too expensive and it’s fast glass. It’s shallow depth of field is fantastic, allowing your food to really pop out of the frame.

Then, in no specific order I would want to own a 85 mm f 1.8 and a 105 mm f 2.8.

These three lenses can all be bought new for around $ 500 ( each ), or much cheaper for second hand ones ( nothing wrong with used lenses, if you know who you’re buying from… ).

while I had the light set up today I took this other picture: it’s almost monochromatic, pretty dark and there’s not much going on in here… but there is more than in the cherries picture; who can tell me what?

As you can notice in the shot above and in the two other pics below, the shape and form of the subject are delineated by bright lines against a dark-ish background; all 3 pictures were taken with the same lighting setup : 2 light sources, a main and a fill. The main light is coming from quite a big soft box placed behind the subject at precisely 12 o’clock; between the light and the subject, is a sheet of black foam just a little bit smaller than the soft box itself. Light travels around it and defines the contours of the glass.

The second light is a bare flash gun ( SB900 ) placed in front of the subject at precisely 6 o’clock pointing at the ceiling on a 45 degree angle; this is a fill light: without it we couldn’t see what’s inside the glass.

The subject is sitting on a thick sheet of black perspex, which gives a lovely mirror like reflection technically called specular reflection. To get the froth cap in the pic above, I set the camera on self timer mode and whacked the beer bottle neck 2 seconds before the flash went off….. years and years of pub training for this one, eh eh…

Three things to keep in mind when attempting these type of shots : lens flare might occur since you basically shoot in the direction of the main light; I recommend using a telephoto lens to fill the frame with your subject and to compress the distance between subject and background. Wide angle lenses might not be appropriate, but I’m not saying that trying it’s wrong.

If you don’t have a soft box you can achieve the same result by bouncing your main light against a white wall or by diffusing it through some translucent material; the quality of the light though will not be as good, because the soft box has a beautiful wrap-around kind of effect.

The fill light might produce some unwanted reflections on the glass, especially if the glass is convex ( less problems if the glass is concave ), so be aware of it when you position your flash; if you can’t get rid of them changing the angle of the light source hitting the subject, then you have to change the angle you’re shooting at. Usually getting down low does the trick.

The last thing you need to know is that glass, and reflective surfaces in general, see and unfortunately reflect everything; so in order to keep your shots nice and clean, kill the ambient light by shooting at your maximum sync speed and remove any object you don’t need from the scene; if you still pick up distracting reflections try using a couple of black ” flags ” or wrap the entire set with black fabric. If you fancy it you can dress in a black leather suit

This is a diagram of the lighting setup for dark field illumination; have lots of fun and try something different all the time. If you are new to this blog, check out older posts here and visit my Portfolio online !

It’s beer o’clock for me, salute!

Dario Milano, Food Pixels Sydney, Food Photography and Food Styling Blog.

The pic above is my toast to the new beginning and it gives me the chance to tell you about bright-field lighting, which is a lighting technique proving very useful to photograph glass objects: light is kept mostly off the subject, thus making it visible against a light background.

The following diagram illustrates the set up I used for all of the shots featured in this post; the only thing that changes is that in the first picture I had a second flash, camera left at 9 o’clock,  pointing at the hand holding the bottle, which otherwise would be in shade. The flash is gridded so that the light doesn’t spill all around the place. I added a warm filter in Photoshop using adjustment layers and that’s about it.

The concept is pretty simple: glass against a bright background must be kept dark to be visible; this can be seen better in this pic I took before pouring wine into the decanter

Bright-field lighting is a great technique to reveal and showcase shape in glassy object; besides this, having the light coming at the subject from behind, makes for a great opportunity to experiment and play with all sorts of fluids and other translucent or semi-translucent foods, i.e. oil, ice cubes, jellies….. etc.

This is just some food colorant being dropped into a glass ( semi ) full of water;  In some situations you might have to dial in a bit of frontal fill, if your subject appears to be too dark; if that’s the case remember to watch out for specular reflections on the glass.

And, finally, this is a shot of 3 Riedel glasses on their own, where the focus is all on composition and shape

If you want the background to be white instead of grey-ish remember to overexpose by at least 2 stops.

I hope you enjoyed this post; I certainly did enjoy taking these pics and would like to see your shots, if you decide to give it a go.

Dario Milano, Food Pixels Sydney, Food Photography and Food Styling Blog

]]> http://www.foodpixels.com/lighting-techniques-bright-field-photography/feed/ 11 http://www.foodpixels.com/lighting-techniques-bright-field-photography/ http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/FoodPixels/~3/b3BuBAU55fw/ http://www.foodpixels.com/wine-photography-know-your-gear-striplights/#comments Fri, 25 Jun 2010 15:14:04 +0000 dario http://foodpixels.wordpress.com/?p=472

Hey gang, I’m not a big fan of axioms but this one ’s true : you gotta spend money to make money; if you are an amateur looking at making the jump into a career as professional food photographer, sooner or later, you gonna want  need some serious gear. And serious gear is quite expensive.

As far as lighting is concerned, when you buy your first set of lights you kinda choose a manufacturer and stick with them for the rest ( or almost ) of your career; it’s hence very important that you consider your every option and make your choice taking into account a multitude of factors, including equipment and studio hire facilities, repairs and service.

But price and budget are gonna influence your choice the most; and talking about money your only ” cheap ” option for professional lighting is AlienBees ( which are now being distributed in Australia ); of course when it comes down to light quality and consistency you get what you pay for: AB are not comparable to a high-end ProFoto, Broncolor or Elinchrom system, but they are “built good enough” and are “sufficient to most uses” . If you decide to dig the AB you might want to read this article by David Hobby, aka Strobist.

Personally I have just recently chosen Profoto as my main lighting system although I still use my SB900, SB600 and 2 x SB28 speedlights, as well as natural light of course, for various jobs,…… but some type of assignments require professional gear, end of story.

Case in point is the picture above which was shot with just one Profoto D1 Air 500 (watts/sec ) fitted with a 30 x 120 cm striplight softbox

which is responsible for the beautiful long and smooth reflections on the glass, and also for the separation subject/background.  This is a very basic and classic set up for shooting wine bottles and it is as simple as it gets; I could have used a reflector to fill in a bit of shadows, but I actually wanted to create quite a dramatic image played on the contrast between the dark tones of the wine, table and background, and the diffused highlights on the bottle, decanter and glass.

The striplight did it all for me; if I hadn’t had one I would have probably used some white bed sheets to diffuse the SB900 and a ” flag ” to cut the light off the background; I could have pulled it off but not quite as clean and sharp, without saying how much time I was actually able to save thanks to the built in modelling light of my D1, a great feature when playing around with reflective surfaces.

As for the camera settings: ISO 200, 1/250 sec,  f 7.1

1/250 is the maximum sync speed of my camera, and I want to make sure I kill any ambient light, so I am able to control intensity, angle and direction of the light;  not only, I am also hand holding the camera in this particular case, and I need to make sure no camera shake is gonna ruin my shot.

I know for experience how delicate a topic this is: gear. My little piece of advice, and I always need to remind myself too, is : buy only what you need and only when you need it, know your gear even when you don’t own it yet, and save up for it instead of using credit.

Amen.

Hey everybody, I wanna spend a few words about Prop Styling here; I already touched on the theme several times , especially in this post about creativity, but it’s worth going back to it and, as usual, a picture says more than a hundred words.

Choosing the right props for a food photo shoot can mean the difference between success and failure.

If you are a professional you’ll certainly know and agree; and even if you are just an amateur or a beginner, and you are just starting to build your Portfolio, I definitely recommend checking out prop shops in your area and having a go at it: plan everything in advance, the budget even more so (’cause it ain’t cheap ), decide what you are going to shoot and what kind of mood you are looking for, then hire some crockery, some fabrics and a surface. Usually you can keep the props for 5 days, which gives you plenty of time to try different set ups and to perfection a shot if you didn’t get it right the first time; no point in taking hundreds of ordinary and uninspired pictures; it’s much better to have a less numerous but staggering Portfolio. Repetition is the key.

Experiment as much as you can, try different angles and backgrounds : the colour, texture, and style of the props must complement the food and will help set the mood of the photograph.

If you are reading from Sydney you should absolutely check out this place ; there is so much interesting stuff there that you won’t get bored of going back and back again. Markets and second hand markets are good places too, and some antiques shops will also let you hire props and furniture.

Once you get the shot you want, don’t stop, capture the same image from a new perspective, restyle the food in a different way or change the lighting set up; you never know, you could get a picture you like even better.

This image and the previous one were both shot using a big homemade soft box ( SB900 fired through hanging white sheets ) and employing a bit of ambient light to act as fill light ;  however in this second version I stuck a second speedlight back into the room to hit the surface of my chair from behind and, in doing so, revealing its wrinkled consistency. Not only this, the back light also casts quite a dark shadow in front of the plate which changes the entire mood of the photo adding a lot more drama.

I haven’t decided yet which version I prefer but it’s always good to just have a chance to choose. Get me?

Have fun with the props and include a link to your food photography in the comments; we are working on a new outfit for Food Pixels Blog and you can expect changes with the next post.

Dario Milano