It’s been very crazy and busy the last few weeks. I thought it would be fun to show some recent photo shoots and some behind the scenes shots.
I had a very fun shoot with a good friend, chef and budding new food stylist, Sarah Simms Hendrix of La Femme Epicure. We tested several breakfast dishes.
All the images were shot with natural light on a Canon 5d Mark II with a 24-105mm lens.
The surface we are shooting on is called chalkboard paper. Sarah found this for us. It actually came with chalk as well, but in the shipping, they were pretty damaged.
The set is very simple – I opened the studio door and shot inside so that I was in open shade – no direct sunlight at all.
The black card you see on the left is actually a large fill card – to fill in the shadows on that side of the set. It’s black on one side and white on the other.
I am shooting tethered as I always do, so that I can edit the images as we shoot.
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Sarah tried a food styling technique for cooking the “sunny side up” eggs. We used the food styling bible, The Food Stylist’s Handbook, written by my friend and teaching colleague, Denise Vivaldo. She has a whole section in there about different ways to style eggs.
There are several ways to style sunny side up eggs. This technique in Denise’s book talks about poaching the eggs at a low temperature in vegetable oil, just enough to cook the whites. One would NEVER eat such a thing, but it photographs beautifully!
Here is Sarah making some finishing touches on our shot.
Ok, did you notice the white tape on the $1200 lens? EVERY zoom lens I have ever had, can NOT hold the focal length (where you zoom it to) when shooting direct overhead. Sooooo annoying. So, I set the focal length I want, then I have to tape the damn thing to make it stay at that focal lenght. Canon says there’s nothing wrong with the lens. Anyway….
Some more shots from our day…
I have to mention here – I ALWAYS shoot these kinds of shots on a tripod. I did not take the camera off the tripod and shoot around the set. I framed it up first without a tripod, then put the camera on a tripod where I decide to shoot from.
Now, the shot above was done with my 100mm macro lens shot with an f-stop of f-4 to get that extreme selected focus.
Off to another shoot on Monday! Hope you enjoyed my show and tell.
Happy Shooting!
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sam
I have a nikon D5500 and I wanna buy a lens I dont know which one choose lens 50 mm et 100 mm or 105 mm
thank you
Christina Peters
Hi Sam, this completely depends on what you are shooting and how. If you do overhead shots, you need a wider lens, like the 50. If you do 3/4 view shots, then the 105 macro would work.
Carlo Parducho
Zoom creep is real! ^_^ I had a 28-135 before and it had very bad zoom creep so I got the 24-105 only to get the same thing (but not as bad). Still though…I think a $1,200 lens shouldn’t be doing that.
I took a hiatus from freelance photography but I’m considering getting back at it. Of course I spend like half a day going through your blog because it’s so good! Hope all is well, Christina! ^_^
Christina Peters
Hey Carlos! Never knew there was a name for it – yeah, all my zoom lenses do this. Sooo annoying. It should never happen and Canon needs to work on that. Happy Shooting!
Andi
What are your thoughts about taking photos of food that you’d “never eat”, as you said? It seems like food bloggers, in particular, would be setting up readers for failure if their photos are impossibly visually-perfect foods that aren’t actually the recipe.
Christina Peters
Hi Andi, I am always taking photos of foods that I would never eat and/or they wouldn’t be safe to eat. The main reason is because the food on set has always been manhandled and possibly been sitting out for some time while being worked on. When shooting a recipe the food you are shooting MUST LOOK just like the recipe, doesn’t mean it has to be edible anymore. We use pins to tuck in lettuce and oils to make food look moist, making the food inedible. To have the cheese look melted on the corners on a burger, we might paint it with Pinesol (no joke). Visually the food will look appealing and still look just like the recipe. If anyone is styling food for a recipe and it ends up looking nothing like the recipe, then that is not a good styling job. There are many ways to style one recipe. The key is to style it so that it looks appealing AND it looks as close to the recipe as possible.
Clara
I am student in the photography program at Daytona State college In Daytona Beach Florida i really wanted to thank you for all this wonderful information . It got me excited about food photography and has helped decide the direction of my career you have great information and tips. Thank you
Christina Peters
Thanks Clara! Glad you are enjoying my blog.
Priscilla @ She's Cookin'
Great info and fabulous food shots – I want to eat everything on this page! Thanks for sharing your expertise, Christina :))
Christina Peters
Thanks Priscilla!
foodivine
Lovely color combinations. Nice.
Rob Stathem
Hi Christina,
Thanks for sharing these terrific tips!
Maybe sometime you’ll have to share with your readers on how to cook and photograph fish. Fish is a tricky one…especially because it shrinks as you cook. I’ve heard from some food stylists who say they don’t cook the fish at all in a pan, but, instead, they use a torch to “brown” the fish. Apparently this helps to keep the form of the fish because it’s not basting in a bath of oil in a huge hot pan? Interesting.
I cooked and photographed Alaskan halibut a couple weeks ago and had a problem with the fish not being tall enough. Once I tried to move the fish on top of the rice to bulk up the plate and make the fish more prominent for the camera, the fish crumbled and fell apart! 🙁
I’ll have to re-do the shoot, but, this time I’m going to be better prepared for obstacles/challenges. Styling and shooting food can be more challenging than people lead on to believe!
Thanks,
Rob
Christina Peters
Hi Robert, depending on the fish and recipe, we will pan sear and then put a torch on it so it’s just cooked on the outside. Every stylist has their own tricks for things. For commercial jobs I always hire a food stylist. If this is a paid shoot I would consider that. Food styling is not easy and I would never attempt to do prepared food stylist for jobs. Good luck on your project!
Debbi Dubbs
Lovely as always Christina!
Christina Peters
Thanks Debbi!
Todd Beltz
Great article Christina. Regarding the zoom issue with not staying in place, I’ve only experienced that on using the 24-70 2.8 lens. Seems a bit loose on the zoom. The others that I’ve used never had any issues. Then again my two favourite lens to use while shooting food is the 100mm macro and 50mm. Always seems to do the trick. 🙂
Christina Peters
Hi Todd, yeah the issue I have found with all zoom lenses I’ve had (I’ve had about 5 now) is the barrel of lens is loose at certain focal lengths, apparently the ones I want to use! And another reason why I loved fixed lenses!
Sally
Great post Christina – very inspirational!
Christina Peters
Thanks Sally!
Life Images by Jill
thank you for this blog post on your set up for the breakfast food photography. I need to find out more about tethered photography.
Christina Peters
Hi Jill, tethered shooting is the way to go! Once you shoot this way, you’ll never go back to using cards to download, unless of course, you are shooting on location.
Darren
Gorgeous images! In particular the granola and fruit plate.
Fascinating to see what lengths you can go to for a particular light.
Christina Peters
Hi Darren! Nice to hear from you. Yeah, soft natural light is great on food. Unfortunately, it keeps moving on us!
Prasad Np
I love your posts… they are absolutely wonderful and I am learning so much from them. Please do keep them coming….. thanks.
Christina Peters
Thanks Prasad! It’s so interested meeting all the folks who find my blog all over the world. Thanks for following.
Connor
Christina,
Wonderful, simple shots and I love your use of natural light + bounce. I’m intrigued with the chalk paper. 🙂
Thanks for posting.
Connor
Christina Peters
Thanks Connor! Yeah, the chalk paper is fun – you can make it look lighter or darker too – I have horrible handwriting so we chose not to write on it, but that could be another fun element to your shot.