Since starting my chef’s apprenticeship I was always interested in food photography and my first real experience was while working with chef Kenneth Leung on The Watermark Cookbook. Given the rising popularity of food photography on food blogs and photo websites like flickr, I thought I might share some of my thoughts on how I achieve professionally styled food photos with ease.

For the past two years, I have been using a Nikon D70 with a Nikkor 18-70mm lens for the majority of my food photography. However, recently while in Japan (the home of Nikon) I decided it was time to go a little more professional and trade in the D70 for Nikon’s latest Digital SLR Camera, the Nikon D200. With the new purchase I also bought a Nikkor 28 – 200mm lens and a Nikon SB-800 Speedlight.

The majority of the food photography in cookbooks and magazines are taken in professional studios or restaurants by a photographer working in collaboration with a food stylist. Each shot is painstakingly designed, prepared and shot. On occasions each dish is cooked about half a dozen times and the detail to which food stylists go to make food look perfect is surprising. The greatest issue when doing food photography is that food tends to melt, sweat, wilt, dry out, shrink, discolour or sag, so timing is of the essence. Many food stylists use real food no matter what; others use creative techniques to the get the perfect shot. An example could be mash potato being used to replace ice cream in a photograph instead of having the real thing melt while the lighting is adjusted; the right angle and background are set; and the exposure tested.

However, most of us don’t have the time to go to great lengths to create the perfect shot, so here are a few ideas, tips and more on how you can achieve your perfect food photo:

Photographic Equipment

The camera gear I use for food photography is semi professional and generally includes;

• Nikon D200 SLR Digital Camera
• AF Zoom Nikkor 28-200mm f/3.5-5.6G IF-ED
• Manfrotto 190 Tripod with a joystick ball head Manfrotto 222
• Nikon SB 800 Speedlight
• Nikon SB 600 Speedlight
• Nikon Capture 4.4
• 100cm Light Tent
• 120cm / 48 inch Lastolite Silver Reflector
• SanDisk 2 GB Extreme III CompactFlash
• Laptop with USB cable

Now some people will say, “I have a $500 digital camera with everything, why go to the expense of all the camera gear for photos on my food blog or flickr?” There is nothing wrong with using your digital camera for the web but I find that these cameras have many limitations in terms of picture quality, flash settings and the ability to create high resolution photos for print. I used to have one of these cameras and still do for taking to trade shows and the like but I have repeatedly been let down with too much, too little or just unbalanced exposure in photos, that I had no choice but to upgrade. At the end of the day if you want your photos reproduced in magazines or newspapers, they need to appear professional. Some publications insist on TIF or RAW images to be supplied and many of the cheap cameras are just not capable of shooting in this mode.

Table Setting

Apart from a straight white background, it’s easy to create professional or realistic table settings for food photography. I like to hunt around kitchenware shops and buy all types of different plates, bowls, cutlery, placemats, glasses and even chopsticks as props to set the scene for each dish. It’s amazing how you can make your ordinary kitchen table look like a Michelin star restaurant with a simple table cloth and some props. However, I still take shots on plain backgrounds on occasions as table settings have a tendency to age.

Food Styling

Prior to taking any photo, I spend a few minutes styling the food to ensure the best results. The most common tip is to use vegetable oil to brush over meats, seafood, vegetables and salads to make them glisten. I have heard that some food stylists use blow torches with meat and make lasagnas with foam instead of meat sauce. Here is a great article about some of the tricks professional food stylists use when doing food photography – read article)

Food Photography Style

To me there are probably three types of shots that you can take and where possible I like to take at least two per dish as for me I like to provide food writers, journalists or graphic designers a wide choice of images to use. I’ll go into much more detail, but the three styles generally are;

• Close in (food only) and all in focus
• Close in with limited depth of field
• Table setting elements providing character and a reference situation

Close in

The majority of photos that I see in food magazines, websites and blogs are close in photos of food. These photos are a full frame of food and stimulate the appetite. Professional food photographers will probably use a micro style lens like a Nikon 60mm f/2.8D AF Micro-Nikkor lens to get close up but I find that my AF Zoom Nikkor 28-200mm can get great close up shots using a manual setting. Try to shoot low, really tight and to the side of the food and avoid anything in the background. Where possible shoot full frame with the food. You’ll nearly always need to use a tripod for a steady shot and I find the best results are at ISO 400 and colour corrected for the ambient lighting.

 
Paperbark Smoked Snapper Fillets with Riberry and Pineapple Salsa
Focal Length 95mm
ISO 400
F-stop f/5.6
Nikon D70

Close in with limited depth of field

Close in with a limited depth of field food photographs are suitable for large platters or for when you want to highlight a particular part of a dish which is fully focused with other parts of the photo out of focus or blurred. The technique is firstly to identify on what you would like focus, then position the tripod low and to the side to get a tight shot. On the Nikon D200 you can manually position the focal point which makes taking a high quality shot easy and quick. My choice of lens for this style of shot is the Nikkor 28-200mm f/3.5-5.6G which offers great depth of field shots and can be taken as close as 45cm from the food.

Paperbark Smoked Vegetable Platter
Focal Length 45mm
ISO 400
F-stop f/5.6
Nikon D200

Food photography with table setting

All restaurants like to promote the ambience of their restaurant as well as the food. Some restaurants like to promote their expensive cutlery, wine glasses, chairs and table settings. Others might go for the views outside or around the restaurant. So in publications which promote restaurants, you’ll see many of the food photographs are shot as guests would see the dishes at the table. Once again my choice of lens for this style of shot is the Nikkor 28-200mm f/3.5-5.6G as it allows you take a close up shot of the food and say a wine glass or fork. You then can come back and take an entire table shot with the food as the highlight. My advice is to use natural light if possible, or else bounce light from flash or strobes off white walls or ceilings or else use an umbrella to minimise reflections or glare off the plates, cutlery and glassware.

Sushi at Genji Teppanyaki Restaurant
Focal Length 27mm
ISO 400
F-stop f/4.0
Canon EOS-350D

Food Photography on your laptop

Most of the high end SLR digital cameras on the market these days have USB or firewire connections which allow you to shoot directly from your laptop. When I have a number of dishes to photograph, I’ll hook up my laptop and shoot directly from the laptop. The greatest advantage is that you can instantly preview your shots and if you have a large LCD screen you can identify any areas out of focus or areas which are badly lit. There is nothing worse than wrapping up a shoot, only to find an hour or so later that you need to re-shoot dishes because of some glitch.

The Nikon D200 works well with Nikon Capture 4.4 and allows complete control of all of the settings on the camera using the simple to use interface. When you take a photo, it’s automatically transferred to the laptop, renamed and previewed. If you’re like me and do up 7-10 dishes at a time, you’ll appreciate the time you invest in setting up this configuration as I find it reduces my post editing considerably.

Lighting Food Photography

In terms of lighting, I try where ever possible to take food photographs with natural light and when required use little bit of filler flash by bouncing it with reflectors. The problem with using a flash directly onto the plate is the reflection which could show up as hot spots in your photo. I would recommend that you simply point your flash towards the reflector, and then bounce this light into the dish. You can use different coloured reflectors for different effects. For example, gold reflects a warm light; silver reflects in low light and white softens the lighting considerably.

At times where natural light is unavailable, I would recommend using multiple flashes which fire simultaneously. Basically place the flashes in a triangle with the food in the centre. This creates an even blanket of light which will provide no shadows at all. This can be achieved with just two flashes, if you substitute the third for a reflector.

Try where possible to avoid taking photos under fluorescent lights as this gives your photos a yellow green tinge. However, high end cameras such as the Nikon D200 have a fluorescent lighting mode, which compensates for this, but do try to avoid it.

Post editing your food photographs

After your food photo shoot, there is a good chance you’ll need to adjust the brightness, contract or even touch up other details a little. If not, you’ll at least need to change the image size or resolution (dpi). I recommend that you use Adobe Photoshop CS3 as it allows you to significantly edit your photo for the desired use. To master Photoshop, you’ll probably need to also purchase a “how to” manual or enrol in a Photoshop course but be aware that there are many free and excellent tutorials online. Once you have mastered the basics, you’ll understand the power of this software and why it is used in almost every professional shot in some way.

Sizing for the web and print

I frequently see images which have been incorrectly handled from the time they are taken off the camera to the time they are published. When editing your photos, you need to keep in mind that any which will be professionally reproduced or printed need to be at 300-350 dpi. Images that are going to be used on the internet or in email need to be downsized to 72 dpi. The difference in file size can be significant from 4Mb for print and 40kb for the internet.

Photo Library using Adobe Lightroom

Nearly every month I am overseas hosting an Australian Food promotion and an average trip will mean at least 1000 food photographs. So to categorise every photo I use a great new tool from Adobe called Lightroom. It’s aimed at the professional photographer and has been designed to compliment Photoshop nicely. Apart from editing your food photographs, one of the best features of the software is the ability to create slide shows quickly on your machine or publish them as a PDF with ease. You can also apply a comment to each photo, which allows you to search food photographs for all the fish photos, salad photos etc. This is very handy especially when a journalist is after a particular food photograph or style of shot.

Food Photography resources online

There are many resources on the internet with regards to food photography, some to checkout include;

Food Photography Group on Flixr
There is a great deal of great food photography ideas both professional and amateurs.