Exercise 6
Objective
The objective for this assignment is to shoot 70-80 images of plated food and effectively display scale. The food should be propped in order to appear taller or fuller. Lighting and angles will play an important role in making the food look appetizing. It will be good to use different kinds of plates and cutlery to add variety to the images. Natural light should be used mostly while filtering sunlight with parchment or wax paper. The background can help set the tone but it's important to put more focus on capturing the food.
To get a sense of scale in relation to the dish, a person should be in the image. Even a person's hand holding the dish would be useful. For newly prepared dishes, the steam can be captured to add to the overall effectiveness to the shot. The food could be sprayed with water or vegetable oil to make the food appear shiny. Then, the freshness of the food can be seen by the viewer. To display more texture to food, spices can be mixed together.
Composition is a key aspect of food photography. Props or ingredients can be used "to create lines and layered effects" (Wood). Utensils can be placed in order to form lines. They can point toward the food and bring the viewer's eye toward the focal point of the image.
There are some food styling tricks that I've applied to the exercise. Most of the images were taken right after the food was cooked to preserve the look of freshness. For the salad photos, dressing was applied but not overdone. The plates were mostly clean and did not have any small food parts. The chicken pieces seem messy at first. This made the subject more appetizing.
Source
https://www.lightstalking.com/how-to-photograph-food
(Album)
Exposure: ISO 400, f/3.6, flash off
Adjustments were made such as increase in contrast and shadows/highlights. The saturation was increased. The glow and shininess are evident especially on the right side of the picture. A piece of napkin was used to prop up the shrimp in the center. This provides more depth and fullness to the composition.
Exposure: ISO 400, f/3.6, 4.5 mm
Shadows and saturation were increases in Photoshop. The sauce goes well with the food and makes it more complete. The natural lighting came from the top left corner. The focal point is the two pieces of chicken, while the background complements the photo well.
Exposure: ISO 400, f/3.6, 4.5 mm, flash off
The utensil goes well with the image and lines up to the food. Saturation was increased. Natural light is coming from the left. Black spices keep the food interesting visually. The skin partly peeled reveals texture and shine.
Summary
This assignment proved to be very challenging. There are many techniques to apply to food photography. Black/white cards can be used to bounce natural shadows to the subject. Applying water or oil to the food can give it some nice glowing effect. Even if several images were manipulated with software, the initial shoot of the image is more natural. The direction of the lighting seems to be one of the more important aspects of food photography. Frontlight, backlight, and sidelight will bring out texture of the food in various ways. If there's one thing to do differently, it would be incorporating more background items to make the composition unique. Also, shooting against dark backgrounds would have kept the exercise more interesting.
One of your best assignments!
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