12/02/2012

food photography lighting tips

By Amy Renfrey


In this food photography tutorial I will be discussing some of the very vital food photography techniques. How to photograph food photography relies upon very much on light, composition and where you focus the lens. Use these tips to capture beautiful pictures every time.

We experience more food than we appreciate. Walking in the supermarket will offer hundreds or even thousands of specialized photographs of meals and drinks. Flipping through a magazine will also more often than not present some savory and tempting food pictures as well. Is there really a method to photographing food successfully? Yes, in fact there are.

Commercial food photography can apply to publicity, packaging or editorial areas, and the professionals will habitually be involved with stylists, prop specialists and clients who want the item to appear tasty and delicious. You will see examples of commercial food photography in flyers of fast food, supermarket catalogues and even billboards in shopping center complexes and street signs. Every time you pass a sign that advertises a pizza, fried chicken or organic produce, there has been a skilled photographer behind that shot. This skilled photographer might have been in a studio, under hot lights and next to windows, for hours, while they shot a sequence of scrumptious dishes.

Clearly there are some vital challenges in food photography. Such things as meats or even vegetables must be photographed in a way that makes them completely tempting. For many the crucial issues are light, background and texture. To photograph foods in the most pleasing ways possible calls for some vital resourcefulness and also demands that the food photographer pays close concentration the food looking as garden-fresh as humanly possible.

Think that a tomato is picked fresh from the ground, cleaned off and then instantaneously photographed? Think again! In order to photograph food that looks like you want to sink your teeth into it at first glance calls for a number of things to be in pace. The first key is lighting. Lighting foods in order to photograph them glowing often requires such methods as glazes or moisturizers to be applied to their surfaces to give them an interesting gloss that they might not normally have.

This also means that the item have to be lit appropriately. The majority of good food photographs are those with a single, small source of light focusing on the food in question and then a brilliantly lit or coordinating surroundings that adds to the complete look of the food. For example, many baked goods such as cakes and cookies are likely to be shot with well suited colors in the background rather than just a plain or solid color.

In addition to the single, small light source, many food photographers also put the light at a lower angle to the item than is standard for customary photographic studio lighting. This is to shoot a great deal of texture across the surface of the food and to help any glazes or moisturizers develop many highlights or accents. While lots of studio photographers also tend to use a great deal of flash fill lighting, food photographers employ reflectors to light up small amounts of light on the subject instead. The last rule around light as used by commercial food photographers is to keep away from lighting any foods from directly in front. This frequently causes shadows to become visible, and a quick look at food photographs would reveal there are never any strong shadowed areas at all.

There are literally dozens of additional aspects used to successfully take images of food, but the bulk of specialists will say that the method is in the light. Once you have mastered the lighting, then you can work on your clear, sharp focus and where you place things in the photo. This process will permit you to capture the most beautiful and tasty photos.




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