I've been thinking about constructing a small portable "studio" to shoot local restaurant cuisines on-site for their menus and advertising. By portable, I'm talking about proportions in the 3' cube range with baffles for the top and sides to minimize ambient light.

Because of the number of food selections, I'm thinking that it has to be on-site with real food. With 2~3 strobes, reflecting walls, and soft boxes I believe that I could get appetizing images.

I have shot products before but not food. Any reason why this may not work for shots of individual dishes of food? Are there specific differences in how food is lit as compared to inorganic products? Any advise would be surely appreciated!

Boy, Loupey you better research thoroughly before you even consider it. A lot of food shots are not what they appear to be, because lights, flashes and various other studio equipment do not work well with the fluffiness, texture, colour, and fragile condition of various foods. Most of what looks like delicious food in photos is not even edible because what is edible is not necessarily shootable. Shooting food well, is undoubtedly one of the most complex areas of photography.

Good luck!!!!!!!!!

Ronnoco

The only food I shoot is when I go hunting :) although the idea of shooting already cooked food sounds good I'd probably eat it before I could get the photos of it!

JS

When you see ads displaying food, you are not actually viewing food.
Lard instead of ice cream, plastic cherries, plastic lobsters, dripping hot butters is usualy oil and food coloring. etc.
The lovely turkey you see with the juicy slice of breast is raw. The skin is burnt with a torch enough to produce perfect color texture.
The beer bottle you see , that would temp any taste bud, is empty, frozen and sprayed with water just before the photo.
Try photgraphing your own meals, they are notvery kind to the camera.

Give me a drunken wedding party over a T-bone steak anytime.

Food is just about the most difficult table top photography. There have been several posts about this, and some comments in the gallery on various images. One problem most photographer's thinking about this never count on is steam. Strobes or hot lights will catch steam and you'll get distortions you cannot believe until you try it a few times.

One reason you don't see menus except from big chains that contain very many photos is the sheer cost in time in getting very many usable images. If menu items change very often the time to produce a photo can eat up the profits from the dish quickly. Restaurants are very low margin and don't have multi-thousand dollar photo budgets.

If you want to try an interesting experiment, go to the Colonel (or fried chicken emporium of choice) buy a carryout dinner with chicken, mashed potatoes and gravy, a roll, and corn. Arrange it on a white plate. Try to take an appetizing photo of it. You can even use a sprig or two of parsely. Let me know how you come out.

Not meaning to shoot a hole your plans, its a Great Idea, it has some business model problems.

As has been mentioned, a lot of what you see and think is food is not. A very high paying profession is a food styler for this kind of work. The food looks great on film but it is not always food, and may not look that good in real life.

I owned a DTP menu service for a while, never had one request for photographic inclusion. Just text and graphics.

The only food I shoot is when I go hunting :)

JS

THAT is funny! I didn't think about that viewpoint when I labeled the thread!

Thanks for the input, everyone. I was kind of thinking that that may be the case regarding the use of inedible models in place of real food. I've even studied those big poster images you see at fast food places and the entire shot seems "fake" (if I can use that word here) - superimposed cherry tomatoes, multiple spliced images, etc.

Its that some of the small, local family-owned restaurants in my area use photos that are just so bad. It seems that anything should be an improvement for them. Whether they can view the difference as helpful to their bottom line, that I do not know. Still, I do plan on taking some sample real-food shots before approaching them so that I can convince myself before trying to convince them that this can be done at a family business level cost.

I will try to remember to come back to this thread later with results.

I almost said I only shoot my food if it moves on my plate, then I realized I'd have no plates because spagehtti tends to move by it'self some times and I'd be shooting a lot of plates....:eek:

JS

although some food can be shot on a small setup with only one or two lights, usually the setup is quite complicated. a lot of small mirrors and shading devices are essential. if you don't have access to a food stylist, get yourself a decent toolbox full of the necessary tools. contrary to otheres here i'd say it is possible to shoot food and eat it afterwards. my recent experience wit food stylists is that thay use less and less glycerin and glue.

i think the most difficult thing about shooting food is the timing. sometimes you hav only a few seconds to get the picture: champagen bubbles fade, juices run off, leafs wither. always use a mockup piece first and only shoot the real thing if you're shure you'll get it. learn to judge you time requirements, because you will have to tell the cook/stylist that you will be ready in 20 min, because they will be...

Strange timing as I did a TV commercial today for Woodmen Insurance serving food at a homeless shelter. OK, it's video and not still; but they did all the shots with real (albeit real cold) food - even the close up shots. Ironic that fake food looks real; but real food acts real. The crew ended up eating the food after the scene was done :eek:

Anyway, I still intend to shoot a variety of stills of real food for kicks. Now more of a curiousity than anything else. Will get back with some samples after a free weekend.

Hey Loupey,,I don't shoot a lot of food but here are two images I shot recently..I used a very basic setup...Canon 580EX bounced out of 45" brolly set high and slightly to the right..Canon 50mm f2.5 Compact Macro lens..There are no hard fast rules with shooting food..With these images the chef prepared the dishes fresh..

Jurgen
Australia

Nice shots of the food, does it taste as good as it looks?

Cool stuff!

if you can beg/borrow/steal a tilt/shift lens, it will make these shots a lot easier to work with; particulalry if you have multiple dishes on the table and want every grain of black pepper in focus...

Cool gig! How did you get that one?

The ultimate way to shoot food is use a 5 X 4 plate camera (Linhoff,Sinar,Toyo etc) and use the "Scheinflugg System" but I don't have one..It was shot at a resturant we eat at..The owner asked me to shoot this stuff for his menu..And yes we did get to eat the food..Perks of the job..

Jurgen
Australia

Its that some of the small, local family-owned restaurants in my area use photos that are just so bad. It seems that anything should be an improvement for them. Whether they can view the difference as helpful to their bottom line, that I do not know. Still, I do plan on taking some sample real-food shots before approaching them so that I can convince myself before trying to convince them that this can be done at a family business level cost.


That is exactly how I feel the idea of shooting food for some restaurants. Some have been so critical about HOW FOOD IS SHOT AT A PROFESSIONAL $100+/hour level that they don't realize there is a customer base of restaurants that will want better shots taken of their offerings. Not every restaurant can afford highend studio food photography (is that what you call it?). BUT, better images of their food will improve the quality of their menu presentation and business.

You can use some tricks of the trade but you don't have to be numero uno in food photography to provide the service. Go for it and share the shots when you are done. I look forward to it.

In addition, I watched a documentary on food photography and yes....it's mostly inedible. They use torches, water sprays, heated metel to do the criss cross on steaks, and AIRBRUSH PAINT on turkeys!