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AIIAZNSK8ER posted:I love the quirky sound effects to make it all kid friendly. But yea, once I saw a trick where they took a raw turkey, painted the skin to make it look crispy and then took a steamer wand to only cook the one section they carve open. Back in the old days of commercial food photography turkeys were commonly basted with motor oil to get a nice color. Now that kind of heavy-handed styling is generally avoided as much as possible.
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Dec 12, 2009 21:56
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Because the current aesthetic for food photography is minimally styled food with natural looking lighting. Not that they don't style the food, because they do, but it's to put the emphasis on natural/healthy/organic/authentic cooking/whatever. The vast majority of food photography isn't advertising. Truth in advertising laws don't have anything to do with the amount of styling either, it just has to be the actual product you would buy. McDonald's can't substitute a homemade bun for the photo of a burger, but they can pick one bun out of 1000, prop it up with toothpicks, put sesame seeds on perfectly with tweezers, and spray it with hairspray to get it to shine.
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Dec 13, 2009 08:40
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notlodar posted:Can they actually spray it with hairspray? Yeah sure. The law just says the thing in the ad has to be the thing they're actually selling. So you can't use mashed potatoes as a stand in for ice cream or go to the farmer's market and get fresh organic peas to shoot for your canned peas ad, but you can have a couple of pro chefs preparing it while a team of stylists does their magic and a photographer lights the gently caress out of it. Like Elmer's glue is commonly used to replace milk in cereal advertisements (doesn't soak the cereal) but they're not selling milk. I just worked on a shoot where the stylist used hot glue to hold together a sandwich and she went through like 3 heads of lettuce to find the one perfect leaf. mysticp posted:I would have moved the bread slightly to the left so that shadow doesn't fall on it, and it would be nice to see more of a specular highlight on that brown liquid to give a better idea of texture but that's kind of nit picky. It's a little to FLOATIN' UNTETHERED IN WHITE SEAMLESS SPACE with no sense of narrative for me, but if that's what they wanted it looks great. Congrats on the job.
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Dec 23, 2009 02:42
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I guess I should post some food stuff. I haven't shot any in a long time but do some every once in a while for stock so I can write off part of my groceries. These are all lit in the studio:     
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Dec 29, 2009 20:54
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Yeah food can be way, way warm but a tiny bit cool and it looks weird. Cool tones aren't appetizing because they rarely occur in edible things in nature.
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Feb 9, 2010 20:48
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somnambulist posted:I wanna add some water drops on the strawberries but I'm not sure how, any tips? Mist them with a spray bottle.
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Feb 15, 2010 19:59
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somnambulist posted:I'll give a spray bottle a try, my only fear is that the fruit will absorb it all and the drops wont be visible. You can mix glycerine in with the water in your mister to help them stay a little longer. That isn't done all that often though, most shoots I've been on the stylist just sits there misting the hero carefully with plain water. Usually there are stand in and back ups, so if the food and set gets drenched in water they just switch out the food and wipe everything down and keep shooting. Photoshopping in water droplets to me sounds loving awful / probably impossible to make look good even if you're really good at retouching. I'm not even sure where you would start. I just misted these with a .99 cent sprayer: 
brad industry fucked around with this message at 00:07 on Feb 16, 2010 |
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Feb 16, 2010 00:05
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Food styling book on Google: http://books.google.com/books?id=7BSioG0WCrcC&printsec=frontcover&source=gbs_atb#v=onepage&q&f=false
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Nov 29, 2010 01:49
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AIIAZNSK8ER posted:Why is food photography so freaking hard. Uninteresting light + bad bad styling is your problem. I can't say this enough, food photography is 95% styling. I work on a ton of food shoots, that is the biggest commercial market in my area. It is standard practice for us to spend 6-8 hours working with a food stylist pushing every tiny little thing around, eye dropping oil on individual things to control highlights, etc. You can't just throw some food on a plate, point a light at it, and expect it to look good. It takes a lot of work and it's tedious. Even shots that look simple to execute are really the result of a lot of careful planning. I just finished a week of little piles of olives on white plates and we did 2 shots a day in a 12 hour day (not including retouching). Look at editorial stuff where the production isn't quite that high. They are still using stylists, but it's not quite as anally detail oriented. Pay attention to how they use light to flatter the food, every highlight and shadow is carefully placed even in more 'natural' looking images. Pay attention to what the 'hero' of the shot is (a plate with a bunch of stuff piled on it is not going to make a good photo, there needs to be ONE central focal point that explains what the dish is about). Look at how the props and plating are there to support the hero and not distract from it. Your first shot I can't even tell what it is, what am I supposed to be looking at? Some weird pile of something with beans in front of it. The bright plate and abyss of blue is stealing attention from the food. Your second one looks like greasy take out. brad industry fucked around with this message at 20:37 on Feb 19, 2011 |
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Feb 19, 2011 20:33
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LAchristus posted:Thank you. The interview went really well and I have been out on a shoot with her. It was with a michelin chef called Paul Cunningham and it was so amazing - it just made me realize how much I want to be food photographer! So now I'm waiting for the photographer to call me back so we can discuss how she think it went. These look good, just to give you some things to think about your props here are just as big as the food in the frame. Give the food more importance proportionally. Also your lighting is pretty flat, and your flat napkin in this one really makes it obvious. Try to arrange the napkin so it's more interesting and catches the light in an interesting way and leads you into the food. Make cardboard "fingers" or stick some props/glasses/whatever outside the frame to filter the light coming in, anything to break it up a little and add some interest or bring the focus back to the food.
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Mar 19, 2011 21:31
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mysticp posted:All this food makes me thirsty. This is some stuff I was doing today with a bartender friend of mine for his and my portfolio. Nice job on getting the pour, but disembodied hand on the bottom is a little weird and competing with the glass. quote:What is cardboard "fingers"? Just long thin rectangles of anything. Cardboard, diffusion material, black, white, gold, whatever. You can make pretty interesting light but just taking some thin strips of cardboard, make a "fan" out of them, and clamp it in place with a pony clamp right out of set to break up the light. Here is a "dots and fingers" set, obviously you can just make your own. http://www.calumetphoto.com/eng/product/matthews_dot_finger_survival_kit/mw3001 Not really a 'food' shot but here's a fish, done with window light:  My dog ate the whole thing off the set when I turned my back... woops. edit: also changed the title to be general food thread brad industry fucked around with this message at 19:55 on Apr 6, 2011 |
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Apr 6, 2011 19:52
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Pretty much all studio people who do food or products have one of those kits laying around, they are very useful. For commercial stuff it is really, really detail oriented to a ridiculous level (generally you do 2-3 shots in a 10-12 hour day). Having fingers and dots let you do things like "take that tiny rear end highlight in the background down 1/2 stop". Or like I said, an easy way to break up a big wash of window or strobe light in a more interesting/natural way. What I personally do instead of spending $650 on every size and density available is buy one of the smaller kits (sometimes you can buy them individually) with just a few of the scrim fingers and dots and then just make your own flags (black foamcore) and reflectors (white foamcore, gold/silver foamcore). You just need pony clamps, C-stands, or one of those 'helping hands' things to position them. brad industry fucked around with this message at 20:35 on Apr 6, 2011 |
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Apr 6, 2011 20:32
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poopinmymouth posted:HAH! Nice fish shot, what is the background material? Parchment paper
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Apr 13, 2011 03:27
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I think the DoF if fine, it works because it's sharp on the caviar. Compositionally the fork/lemon is not helping, kind of a visual hurdle you have to get past to get to the oyster. I think if it were positioned to lead your eye to the oyster that would work better, or at least put it behind the food.
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Apr 17, 2011 02:37
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I like Bon Appetit's photography the best (mostly because of Craig Cutler). Although so far I am not a fan of their new creative director... Donna Hay magazine always has great photos and by far the best styling/props, but it's like $120 for a subscription if you don't live in Australia. Sunset also runs good stuff. Besides that one book I don't think there is anything else in print on food styling, it is an apprentice type job that you would learn by assisting. If anyone is in SF, there is an APA lecture this Thursday (6/16) with a food stylist at the Apple store. brad industry fucked around with this message at 21:55 on Jun 15, 2011 |
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Jun 15, 2011 03:56
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| # ¿ May 1, 2024 03:32 |
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That light is not flattering at all, I can't figure out what to look at (the egg? the meat? what is the focus?), poo poo is just piled up with no thought to composition, their is skin on top of the broth, if you can't make one bowl look good then putting 5 in the frame isn't going to help, etc. Put your camera on a tripod and build one single bowl of ramen one element at a time and think about the composition and what the person looking at it is actually supposed to look at first. Where and when and how are they going to eat this ramen? A blank table tells me jack poo poo about it. And whatever light you are using, stop it. It's way too broad and it's not doing anything to make the food look good. Stick it next to a window or something and don't overthink it.
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Sep 20, 2011 05:26
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