Isn't he cute? My little fig tree? Think it was shot outside? See the lens flare? Gotcha! I shot this in the studio actually. OK, so here's what happened. I pulled this whole shoot together in a few hours. It all started Saturday. Now this is going to sound like I'm rambling here, but trust me, it will all make sense. My good friend and food blooger, Erika Kerekes of In Erika's Kitchen, had … [Read more...]
Shooting on Location | Farm Tour California Avocados Direct
Doesn't this look like an enchanted forest? I called it the enchanted avocado forest when I was there. Those are avocado trees - 40 year old ones. I have never seen avocado trees growing like this, until now. My good friend Mimi Holtz is married to an avocado farmer - a 4th generation avocado farmer named Ed. They own and operate this family farm. They sell avocados direct to the … [Read more...]
How to Find Amazing Props for Your Food Photos
Props are just as important as the food in a food photograph. In this post I'm going to talk about how you need to become a little prop hunter to take your food photos to the next level. The props in the image above belong to my good friend and prop stylist Amy Paliwoda. Amy and I teach classes together and she has an amazing collection of props and backgrounds for shooting. She has soooo many … [Read more...]
How to Edit Images Shot on Location – Before and After in Adobe Lightroom
Shooting on a bright sunny day can be very challenging. The light can be very harsh, the shadows can be way too dark, and basically the amount of light going from your shadows to your highlights can go beyond the range of what your camera's sensor can handle. The sensor is the thing that has replaced film and is what is capturing your image. Taking an Image from "yuck" to "perrrty" When I shoot … [Read more...]
Location Shooting – Windrose Farms Spring Tour
I went to this beautiful farm in the beginning of May when I was on the Spring Farm, Food, and Wine Tour with Deb's Kitchen. Windrose is a 50 acre family farm in San Luis Obispo County, owned by Bill and Barbara Spencer. They have vegetables, apples, stone fruit and they also raise sheep. The farm is currently organic and is now transitioning to be a biodynamic farm. I didn't fully know what … [Read more...]
Shooting on Location – Spring Food and Wine Tour
The first weekend in May I went on a farm and wine tour given by Debbi Dubbs of Deb's Kitchen. We went to the Cambria/Paso Robles wine region. We had perfect weather and it was really beautiful. Deb and her crew are great to hang out with. There was about 12 of us in total I think. I arrived in Cambria Friday night. We stayed at the Cambria Pines Lodge. We all met at the home of one of Deb's … [Read more...]
How To Use Props to Tell Your Story
Sometimes just one prop will inspire me to do a photo shoot. That's what happened here. I was on a great food and wine tour in Cambria, CA that a friend of mine was giving (future post), and one of the places we toured was an olive oil company. I found this beautiful olive oil dish in their tasting room/shop. The dish is from Mary Judge Designs. As soon as I saw this I just had to have it. She … [Read more...]
Shooting on Location – Fairfield Farms
I love seeing how our food grows. In southern California we are very lucky to have several farms all within a few hours of Los Angeles. Last week, Erika Kerekes of In Erika's Kitchen invited me to go on a blueberry farm tour near San Diego with other food bloggers. The farm is Fairfield Farms. Blueberries never tasted so good, picked right off the vine, warmed by the sun. The Process - How … [Read more...]
Product Photography Behind the Scenes
A friend hired me to photograph his yummy olive oil product line, the Arianna Trading Company. Photographing grocery products is extremely different from photographing food, as you will see below. Here I will show you what's involved with doing this kind of a shoot. Prepping for the Shoot My client, George, brought the products over to me the day before so I could see what they … [Read more...]
How to guarantee the best exposure
Learn how to see exposures I see a lot of blogs with pictures of their food that are too dark. Learning how to get the perfect exposure takes time. After a while you will start to see the difference in images when they are too dark or too light, you'll just know by looking at them. Look at food magazines - my FAVORITE is Donna Hay. You can see a few teaser pages of each magazine online for … [Read more...]
Behind the scenes of the “Merseyside Corn Field” shoot
Never heard of Merseyside Farms? Well, that's because it's my made up farm where I photograph really large produce. Merseyside is the name of my photography corporation. I was inspired to do this series of large produce farms when I was looking at old postcards from the early 1900's. In fact I did a post about - the post cards are called "Exaggerated Produce" and here's the post. I thought … [Read more...]
How to properly optimize images for the web using Adobe Photoshop
Every class I teach there are always questions about how to optimize images for the web. Once you learn how to do this it will become second nature. It's very important to learn this so that your website and blog perform quickly and load images fast. Not to mention, making your images nice, crispy, and sharp! Do not use WP or Blogger to resize your images I've seen bloggers uploading huge files … [Read more...]
What lens should you use to shoot food?
This post was updated April 13th, 2017 I get asked, "What lens should you use to shoot food", all the time. These beautiful little purple carrots are perfect for doing a lens test to show you some different lenses to help you pick your perfect lens. Does your camera have a cropped sensor? I have to mention something about cameras here. This is extremely important. I've learned that most … [Read more...]
What is the best time of day to photograph food?
I often get asked what is the best time of day to shoot food when using natural light. This really depends on where you are shooting and how much natural light you are actually getting at certain times of the day. I always use a tripod so for me I am not limited by the quantity of light that is coming through the window. If you are not using a tripod (and you should be by now!) you are totally at … [Read more...]
Behind the scenes of a food shoot – Angel Meringue Cake
Every month we do what we call "test" shoots for ourselves. These are images that we will use for self promotion, for our websites and well, really - its just a fun day to shoot food where we are the clients and we can do what ever we want! The "we" being Amy (prop stylist extraordinaire), Alise (food stylist extraordinaire) and myself. We figure out what day we are all free and then discuss what … [Read more...]
Food shoot behind the scenes for Dulcinea foods
I like to create images that look like they are outside but were really shot in my studio. This was shot for Dulcinea. We were creating a scene as though these were just picked off the farm. I have a garden center right near my studio so we'll get these kinds of grasses you see in the background from there often. I had the help of my good friend and prop stylist Amy Paliwoda. Amy and … [Read more...]
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