Food Photography – A New Adventure

Mmmmm food, I love cooking it, eating it and photographing it. I had never thought of shooting food photography, before I was asked by a few clients. Of course I had done the odd instagram look at my pretty food snaps from my phone. But I love photographing people so much it hadn’t occurred to me that I would enjoy food photography. How silly of me. As soon as I did my first shoot I loved it! Experimenting with angles, textures, colours, styling tables. It reminded me of my days in theatre building a set, using props. New challenges using old hand skills.

Time to eat

So as eating food is one of my favourite things this new venture in food photography suited me rather well. Many of the clients simply force fed me meals after the shoots and I have too say I didn’t complain. All joking aside though, I find food photography very satisfying to shoot, to edit and to deliver to clients. I have never left a shoot feeling it didnt go well or thinking that I have some class images! Very quickly in the process I found my style as a food photographer, which is similar to how I enjoy my portrait photography. Up close, details, beautiful fall out and lots of texture and balance.

When, where, how?

Most often I find myself using my 50mm Nikon lense for food photography. Particularly the up close detailed shots and then my zoom lens for group images. I always shoot with natural light as the photoshoots are always in the venue and within a short timescale. The type of restaurant I photograph for varies a lot as well which is fun and keeps me on my toes. Therefore I can go from high end fine dining to a local chippy, sometimes within the same day. At the moment I have only shot for restaurants and food businesses in Belfast but I am able to shoot anywhere as I keep my gear load low, optimum for travel. But no matter where or when my enthusiasm and input obviously stay the same, always 100%.

The shoot

We present the food as best as possible, find interesting angles and show of the ingredients that make the dish and the image pop. Finding a great spot of natural light is the first thing I do when entering a venue. The next is to ensure the chefs create vibrant dishes that will look appetising and appealing in images. We eat with our eyes after all. Then I move on to arranging the table, perhaps dressing it with props from the venue or chucking flour all over the place. That may be my favourite thing to do ha ha. Not only for the fun of it of course, but for the depth it gives to the images and the added dynamic of textures.

Enjoy the images, let me know if you have any favourites or questions and head over to the   contact page for enquiries!

 

Em

x

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

error: Content is protected !!