Natural Food Photography

* For those on the mailing list, please post you homework assignment as a "comment" so that others may benefit from your insight.

I'm writing an article here that will probable end up on one of my other pages (pro-photography 101 or food photography blog) but I thought I'd post my working draft ere in the mean time.

I've come to notice some things lately in my own photography that I hadn't noticed before. I'm doing more subtle things that I think have made a big difference in my work. Once you get to a certain point in your career, the improvements tend to be minor, compared to when it's earlier in your career and there's more to discover. I guess it's the "old dog, new tricks" syndrome.

Anyway... I wanted to share some things that I think will help the budding food photographer's learning curve go a little faster. This is the first part of the article. I need to add illustrations and photos, but that will come later. You'll just have to tune in later.

Natural food photography – (First draft)

Have you ever wondered about what makes a food photo look natural? Sure, documentary and photojournalism photographs by definition, usually tend to look natural. What about other types of photography? What about food photography?

When a food photographer takes out his camera and takes a picture of an existing environment, things tend to look very natural in the resulting photo, but when that same photographer tries to create a natural looking photo in the studio, he very often falls short of the mark. I’m not saying that the photos always look good, but they usually look “natural”. There are many reasons for this shortfall, and this article will attempt to explore why many studio images (food photography in particular) do not seem to look as natural is they could.

For the sake of organization, I’ve broken the issue of how to make your studio food photography into two categories. One category I call “inside the crop”, which refers to all the elements that can be seen directly in the boundaries of the photograph. The other category I call “outside the crop” which refers to all the elements that aren’t inside the boundaries of the photo, but sill affect the look and fee of the food photo.

I consider this article to be a bit advanced for most photographers just beginning their career as a professional, but I think if you can understand that issues like this exist, you can shorten your learning curve immensely. Usually, beginning professionals are more concerned about things like f-stops and getting things in focus. Some photographers never get past that part of photography, while others realize that all that technical stuff is just a set of tools that enable the photographer to create photos that fulfill their visions.

When I say things like “fulfill their visions”, don’t get me wrong. I’m not talking about some high falutten, mystical ideological translation of some obscure concept. I’m talking about simple decisions we all make as photographers to create better photos that fulfill out needs. One example might be, “which depth of field would work best for what I’m trying to do”? Or another might be, “What should be in focus to help sell this product”?

Inside the crop

When a food photographer sets up a shot, and I’m assuming that this is some kind of environmental shot, there will usually need to be several elements in the photo to make it look natural. If you look on your own diner table or restaurant table during your next meal, you will probably notice things that you hadn’t thought would be there. There might be a menu rack or table tent display, or an extra plate off to the side that no one is using, or a candleholder or some other object not normally around. I’m not saying that you should put weird things in all your shots, just be aware that thinking outside the box with propping, can sometimes make your shot look a little more natural.

Too many food photos tend to be much to sterile looking, in my opinion. People make a mess when they eat, usually. Some of their food leaves crumbs behind and sometimes not all those crumbs stay on the plate. Sometimes people don’t put their silverware back exactly where they picked it up. Heck, sometimes the kids set the table and the fork is on the wrong side of the plate and sometimes the water glass is not where Martha Stewart suggested it should be.

Sometimes, people actually eat their food. At least some of it might be gone before the picture is taken. In real life, that may actually happen ya know... Sure, it might not make for a national ad, but maybe it would be perfect for an editorial illustration.

To be continued…

Before I leave, I have a homework assignment for you...

Name three things that make the food photo look "more" natural than it might have...?



Good luck!