Do you have trouble figuring out what is the best camera angle to use for your food shots? I find that with the students that I teach, this is a very common problem. My students often teach me what I need to teach them. When I first started teaching, I would do a demo in class where I set up my camera while my colleague, who I was teaching the class with, would set up our food and props for … [Read more...]
Photographing Restaurants – Part 3 – How to Take Good Pictures of Food in a Restaurant
And now for the final part of my Restaurant Photography Series - Part 3 - How to take good pictures of food in a restaurant. I will finally be talking about photographing the food and chefs for restaurants. The shot above was done for Napa Valley Grille in Westwood, CA. I was hired to shoot from 2-4:30 pm. I ended up shooting from 2 - 5:30 pm. We did a ton of shots in a short time period. This … [Read more...]
Photographing Restaurants – Part 2 – My Food Styling Kit
I am not a food stylist. I am a food photographer. Huge difference. Over the years, I have learned several tricks for styling food, so when I am photographing food in restaurants without a food stylist, I will have to help the Chef style the food a lot of the time. I will show you the little food styling kit that I bring with me on location. It aint pretty, but it's extremely handy. This … [Read more...]
Photographing Restaurants – Part 1: The Business Side
When I started writing this series of articles about restaurant photography I was going to show you my behind-the-scenes of a restaurant shoot first. Then I realized I kept referring to the business of photography first as there are so many things that have to happen before you even get a client. In this post, I will explain what's involved with photographing restaurants professionally and what … [Read more...]
Behind the Scenes of a Breakfast Food Shoot
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 … [Read more...]
The easy way to do an overhead food shot
Overhead food photography is a great way to make a very graphic food image. Food bloggers coined the phrase, "flatlay" for this technique but traditionally we've always called it an overhead shot, just to clear up any confusion there. Overhead food images are used in all sorts of content these days. It's actually a very easy way to create a nice looking food photo because you are totally … [Read more...]
10 Strange Food Photography Tools and Tricks
Contained in this post are 10 strange photography tools that I have in the studio for shooting food. I'll also tell you where you can get them as well. I'll be mentioning or linking to a few companies here - none of the companies or links are affiliates. #1. "Shaved Ice" Looks like shaved ice, doesn't it? It's actually a space age polymer. Ok, it was space age maybe 25 years ago or more. That's … [Read more...]
Food Styling Tips – How to “Grill” Food without a Grill and make Bacon Ribbons
How many recipes do you have that involve grilling food? It's summer time, so chances are you've got several. I'm going to show you how easy it is to get the grilled look without busting out the grill for your photo shoots with these food styling tips. Then I'll show you a super quick and easy trick for making beautifully curved bacon. "Grilling" Peaches The "grilled" peach salad was made by … [Read more...]
How to Make Distressed Wood Backgrounds for Photo Shoots
Quite often I am asked where I get my backgrounds. Many of my surfaces are painted or stained wood. You don't have to be a woodworker to do this. I'll show you how easy it is. In this post I will show you how to distress wood with paint. After I had my materials, this took me about an hour to do both the wood plank surface, and the wood "wall". That's not water in the background - that's … [Read more...]
Easy Refrigerator Pickle Recipes – and How I Photographed Some of Them
What kind of pickles do you like? I love the tart, vinegary kind - not the sweet ones. A good friend of ours gave my boyfriend a great cookbook for his birthday. It's called, "This is a Cookbook, Recipes for Real Life". That was my inspiration for making pickles. They have some super easy pickle recipes in here (and loads of others too of course), and I have permission to share them with … [Read more...]
Behind the Scenes of the “Location” Shoot of a Little Fig Tree
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 … [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...]
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