Playing with Food

I am constantly looking for new ways to photograph food. I've been at it for a year and I've been lucky enough to have a few people pay me along the way. Today's trends are a lot different then the plastic food photography of the past. Modern food photography is more about the present and capturing food in the moment as you would see it in a real life situation.  

My new found love comes with a lot of trial and error. I love the process, plating a dish and considering all of the other elements, that make the scene come to life. In this post I'll talk about two different styles and techniques that I used.  

 Simple & Modern

In these images I wanted to create something that was simple and modern. I composed these plates with random items from my kitchen. The ingredients are not fancy - that's the beauty of it. I typically shoot everything with natural light but these were shot at 1 a.m. in my kitchen. In order to get the look of daylight I had to consider two things. One, I needed a really bright light source. Two, the light had to be large and soft. My ring light fit the bill. I love this constant light for food photography because you can see what you get before you even take the picture. 

My set up looked like this. I used my 5 in 1 reflector to diffuse the light, that's how I was able to get a soft shadow on the underside of the plate. The texture below the plate is just printed on a large sheet of paper.  

The theme of the night was also flowers and fruit. I grabbed some flowers from the front of the house and hand picked some fruit from the fridge. Here is another over head shot.

This next style of image is more about lighting. Dramatically different then the simple/modern ones, this image is dark and moody. I've been drawn to this style for awhile but haven't figured out how to shoot it. The biggest thing for me was to find a window in my house to use. I tested out a couple and they weren't working. I finally looked down on the floor and then... BAM! My set up looked like this... 

The lighting was nice and even. I shot this bowl of oatmeal a little under exposed. Then in the edit I opened up the bowl and a couple of strawberries. I really like the results and look forward to shooting more images in this style. 

As I dive more into this photography stuff I see a lot of parallels with design. Style is no different, in design verses photography, I believe that the client and project should dictate the style of the project. I'm going to learn as many different styles and techniques so that I can serve my clients needs and not impose only one or two styles that I feel comfortable with on a project because that's what I'm limited to. I'll see how it goes, for now I'll keep learning.