I like food. I really love good food. In another life I may have even been a restaurant critic. Creating things is something that I enjoy doing and I do that with the photography. Creating good food is not my calling but eating it is. I do have a friend though that is really good at creating really good food. His name is Noel and he is the head chef at a real nice restaurant here in SA in a suburb called Westville. The restaurant name is Salute they do Italian style food.
I like new projects and thought I would try do a bit of food photography. Who better to help me with my food project than Noel. Noel is as passionate about his food as I am about my photography. Noel studied to be a chef and is gaining some wonderful recognition and has been in the local papers a few times recently. The restaurant critics find his food wonderful. An interesting fact abut Noel his creativity is not just in food. He is the vocalist in a band called Cynical Origin just in case you are wondering they are a Metal band - Rock on. One of the things a chef will learn at chef school is the client must eat with their eyes first. So to do this the chefs are taught about colours and presentation. Noel is damn good at presentation - the part that's really important to photograph.
Now photography is all about truth and reality. Yea Right. Truth about food photography is this. Unless you are selling the food directly in the photograph you can do anything you want. Fast food outlets need to be photographing real food for their menus. In other words if it is a burger with onions etc on the menu then the photo had to be taken of actual beef pattie and real onions. But who said it has to be a cooked pattie or onions without food colouring. If the food on the menu looks really good is the lawful representation then chances are if you had to pick up that exact burger that was photographed on that menu and took a bite you would get a mouth full of tooth picks, chemicals and raw meat and if you are really lucky you wont die.
Real food is hard to get looking really good unless you name is Noel. I decided a while back that real food is what I would like to photograph. I did a bit of reading on how food stylists do the food you will see in publications etc. I may look good but that's it. Most of the food you see in those pictures are not even edible. Seems a bit like cheating to me. Its a little like this "Heres this car I want you to photograph but I don't want you photograph the car you drive away with you must photograph this car with these crazy modifications that we have done that makes it impossible to drive it ever".
The food you see here is real and what you see is as it would be served to the hungry client sitting at the table. Lucky for me as I got to sample one of the dishes. Well did it taste as good as it looked? You better believe it. Since taste-o-vision and smell-o-vision is not widely available yet pictures will have to do.
One thing that I can say working with restaurant staff is use their experience. They know the real deal how long until the next plate to photograph will arrive and what is the right accompaniments to go with the food. Wine, condiments etc. Approach them with a positive attitude and show them some of those pictures they even start coming up with some great ides some you can and some you cant use but get them on you side and it makes you life a lot more simple. Noel was also really accommodating he would ask "what would you like next more height different colours". When this is you first time photographing food seriously having someone helping you by plating the food in a photograph friendly way does really help.
Just remember that the really fancy food photographs you see have been styled by a food stylist. What is a food stylist? you maybe wondering well their job is to get the food looking good that's it. They not interested in the photography. Thats your job. The food stylist will correct something that's showing or not showing on the food. They are not interested in Ive got a hotspot etc. That is partly the reason I wanted to do this shoot. It was to get a bit of experience with how to light the food, looks to go for, background, settings etc. To add context to the food the background is as important as the food.
In these shots the restaurant was open and serving customers so I could not really light the whole place and kick customers out the way. The restaurant sorted out a nice spot away from the rest of the tables. I could work and do what I needed to do with out being disturbed which was nice of them.
The lighting was not overly complex 3 speedlites. 2 set about 45 degrees either side of the camera and one as a background light. The two either side of the camera were in soft boxes. The background light was in some of the pictures fired bare onto a red wall and others through a red glass candle holder. I used the ETTL functions on the flashes and the nice thing about it was I could just dial in a 2:1 ratio between my key and fill flash and done. The bonus is that I can even do it from the camera and I don't even need touch the flashes. The only flash I did need to touch was the background light as it was not the most stable in the round candle holder on the floor. The shutter speed was about 1/200 and the aperture ranged between 2.8 and 7.1. I was using my Canon EF 24-70 F2.8 lens and dialed into my camera a +1 stop on the flash compensation. the reason is the camera will see the white plates as a serious highlight and back the flashes a bit. Post was just a bit of a crop and levels and a touch of vibrance to bring out the lovely rich colours of the food.
There are a few things I will do different in future I will be pulling the table cloth very straight. The other thing is working on getting something cool in the background. When I look at the photographs they are good but Imagine if I could get some of the restaurant and decor in the background. If done properly it would give more interest and context to the food. If I put the food on a bar it would imply a pub lunch or if a forest was in the background it would imply a picnic or or or - as if you could lug this out there. But you get the idea. I am happy with the photos.The food is well represented and looks yummy.
