Many of you that are just starting out might feel a bit overwhelmed. I get told, “I don’t even know where to begin”. So I will tell you my process for how I do a food photography shoot for my portfolio. It’s a bit different for a job for obvious reasons because of what needs…
10 Wacky Food Photography Terms And What They Mean
Every industry has its own set of language that makes no sense to those who are unfamiliar. Food photography is no different. There’s all kinds of strange food photography terms. Some make sense when you think about it. Others, not so much. A Little Photo Assisting Story When I was first assisting, let’s just say,…
What Is A C Stand, Why You Need It, And How To Use It For Overhead Shots
Some of the links are Amazon affiliate links, and should you choose to purchase an item, I will make a small commission at no cost to you. This helps keep this blog free of ad banners. I need to introduce my lil friend – The C Stand! It means Century stand. This is the most important…
How To Prepare For Your Food Photo Shoot – Make A Shot List!
When I started teaching food photography classes several years ago I saw that many of my students were completely overwhelmed with how to put a photo shoot together. They would say to me in frustration, “I don’t even know where to start”. Even if you’ve been shooting for a while now, or just starting out,…
Compositing Tricks with Photoshop
This image looks simple, right? Just slap 9 scoops of sorbet on a platter and throw some food accents on it. Easy! Yeah, no. This final image is a composite of 10 images – each image was of one scoop of sorbet with it’s food accent, plus an image of just the marble platter. This…
Behind the Scenes of the Lobster Bake Shot
This image is from a shoot I did to create some promo images. I often have to create what’s called test images to make promotional material to get new work. These images are showing the weathered wood surface that I found at a wood salvage yard in Los Angeles. I go over how I found…
Inspiring Food Photography from The Modernist Cuisine
If you haven’t seen this yet – you really need to add this to your list. I’m talking about the massive cooking encyclopedia called The Modernist Cuisine: The Art and Science of Cooking. It’s a whopping 2,438 pages in a 5 volume set. The author is Dr. Nathan Myhrvold. That’s right, I said Doctor. Photography…
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…
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…
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…
To see my commercial food work have a look at my photography site: 
