AndyH Loc: Massachusetts and New Hampshire

My wife and I are both enthusiastic amateur chefs, and, if I do say so, we produce some pretty tasty dishes that we've perfected over many years of tweaking. We often get requests from friends and family (especially the latter, as they eat it more frequently) for our recipes for Potato Leek Soup, Balsamic Potato Salad, my Secret Shepherd's Pie, Teriyaki Mushrooms, Grammy's Corn Chowdah, and other somewhat unusual dishes.

So we're beginning a photo project featuring recipes and process photos, which I hope to publish in PDF format as a family legacy that can be passed on from Grammy and Grampa as something that will live forever, or at least until our family line dies out (not for a number of generations - together we have five living children, a dozen grands, and quite a few that we've "virtually" adopted over our years together!). I don't know exactly how many family recipes we have in total, but I think it's enough to fill a good size book, judging from the ones we post on FacBook and the responses we get.

On The Book of Face, I've mostly shared just camera phone photos, rarely a well composed and shot DSLR or even Point and Shoot / Bridge Camera image. So we're beginning to go through our repertoire taking better quality photos to export into an album or online book. I'm posting this for two reasons:


1) I'll bet we're not the only ones whose families and friends would like something like this, and I wanted to share the idea.

2) I have rarely taken food photos in the past, and I'm sure there are many here who have some great ideas on methods, tips, and techniques for lighting, angles, "food styling" etc.

Welcoming any of the latter especially. I'm cooking something special tmorrow (we are primarily weekend cooks...) and I'd like to try to document the process and the results. Until they invent the "taste sample" software, I think some images will be the best way to do it.

Looking forward to hearing some ideas!

Andy "You've Been Chopped" H

SpyderJan Loc: New Smyrna Beach. FL

There are a lot of videos on YouTube for tips and tricks to photograph food.

rmalarz Loc: Tempe, Arizona

Andy, food photography is an art unto itself. In my experience with restaurants, they don't want to pay for what it takes and don't wish to waste food either. So, getting good photographs is an art and don't plan on eating anything planned for a photograph. I've been fortunate enough to have worked for a few privately owned places who wanted some spectacular photos of the meals they offered. They got them. The menus looked great. But, I wouldn't eat anything that was pictured there. Additionally, each photograph represented a few hours of preparation work and several in processing. Oh, I did get to eat there free any time I wanted.
--Bob

AndyH Loc: Massachusetts and New Hampshire

Thanks, Bob. I don't expect perfect images, as I've seen what "styling" can do to the actual food product! I'm just hoping some of the experts, amateur and pro, on UHH, have some ideas for shooting without ruining the food.

And yes, there are thousands of videos on YouTube, but sorting the wheat from the chaff there is a lot more time consuming and reliable than the ideas from knowledgeable contributors here. I've already done the Google!.

Andy

AndyH Loc: Massachusetts and New Hampshire

Have you used any of them? Or have any to recommend?

My YouTube experiences in searching for the best "how to" videos on any subject have involved a lot of threshing, that is, sorting wheat (sometimes more like "sheet") from chaff...

Andy

SpyderJan Loc: New Smyrna Beach. FL

No I haven't Andy. I have never shot food, but I did look and saw a lot that looked to be helpful. You may get better advice here for sure.

wayne barnett Loc: Grants Pass, Oregon

I have done and am still doing what you propose to do. What I do is to just take a snap of the final product, like a bowl of soup with a spoon in it and call it good. It gives an image of what the final product looks like and adds color to the cookbook. If one of you wants to shoot procedure shots as the other prepares the dish then that would be a great team exercise. For a number of years I have been putting my best recipes in a cookbook and now I am entering photos as a make the dish again. For things like cookies I just put 3-4 on a plate and take a photo, nothing fancy. For family pubs there does not need to be a big production. As noted above if stages like in the commercial shoots you would not want to/be able to eat the food. For most of us that would be a waste. Just keep it simple.

AndyH Loc: Massachusetts and New Hampshire

Thanks!

Do you use available or flash lighting? Favor a particular focal length?

I’m glad others are doing this as well!
Andy

rjaywallace Loc: Wisconsin

Andy, I’ve never heard of such a thing...😆

The attached was shot ‘€˜SOOB’ (straight out of the delivery box)

(Download)

AndyH Loc: Massachusetts and New Hampshire

👍

SharpShooter Loc: NorCal

Andy, I'm gonna suggest that you not get to crazy about this. If it's for your personal Blog and e-Publication, just do what seems right to you.
Watch a few uTubes to get you in the right direction and have fun with it.
It seems what's important here are the recipes.
You probably don't have all the strobes needed to do this like a commercial shoot so don't try to make it that.
Sometimes a good grass-roots effort is the most effective.
Don't confuse Food Photography with taking pictures of food!!
I'm sure whatever you do will hit its mark with your intended audience. Keep it light and fun and enjoy introducing others to your families fabulous food!!! Good luck
SS

AndyH Loc: Massachusetts and New Hampshire

I’m not going to go crazy, but I’ve got lights, umbrellas, etc. and it’s pretty easy if you set up once. I’m going to do process shots to help show the how as well as the what.

I’m looking at this as a fun project and book of memories. They’ll see the old folks having fun together in the kitchen, showing off their skills, and eating.

I wish I had such a book from our parents, but it was such an effort back then. All we have are the memories. But I can imagine our grands watching us having fun together cooking, and triggering childhood memories.

rgrenaderphoto Loc: Hollywood, CA

The first two are critiques of user submitted photos, and will have a lot of great suggestions for food photography:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w0up0F9G9NU&t=267s
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kflzyPjSP64&t=951s

this one's fun:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KIOF4vpm_sY&t=33s

AndyH Loc: Massachusetts and New Hampshire

Thanks! These look like just what I’m looking for. Switching to laptop to watch them in full.

Andy

Gene51 Loc: Yonkers, NY, now in LSD (LowerSlowerDelaware)

Andy, years ago I had the pleasure of working on some food styling with one of the important figures in the area of food photography - Delores Custer.

http://www.delorescuster.com/

She has written a very good book on how to make food look amazing - from a stylists point of view. She was in the game 35 yrs ago when food photography was really awful and unappetizing, and the styling was done by home economy teachers who's day job was teaching Home EC in high school. Not the most inspiring or creative approach to food photography.

Two other good reference books are

Food Photography and Styling by John F. Carafoli

Lighting for Food and Drink Photography by Steve Bavister

This will detail the three main types of food photography - Packaging - which has very rigid standards, and is closely controlled from setup to final product image, Advertising, which allows for a bit more creativity, and Editorial, which can best be described as "Food Porn" - where pretty much anything goes as far as making creative and artistic imagery with food.

https://cooking-without-limits.com/2014/09/04/types-of-food-photography/

You will mostly be doing something somewhere between Advertising and Editorial, leaning towards Editorial.

Good sources for ideas, and understanding the effect of food photography trends would be Food and Wine, Fine Cooking, Saveur, Martha Stewart Living - and of course Good Housekeeping, Better Homes and Gardens, Family Circle, etc.

You can get a sense of how food is photographed in other countries by looking at publications from England, France, Australia, Nordic countries, etc. Each brings to the table (pun intended) a different style and viewpoint.

One of my all time favorite food photographer/stylist has to be Australian Donna Hay. Here recipes are minimalist, creative, and this is totally reflected in some outstanding images, both in her cookbooks and her magazine.

There is another guy, James McNair that has a distinctive and plain style - he has many single-subject cookbooks - about 25 or so - that do a nice job. He published them during the mid 80's to the mid 90's. His styling is a bit dated, but you can get some ideas on lighting and "posing" from looking at his work.

You got some serious homework to do. Keep in mind that lighting is everything. And good food photography is 80% styling and 20% photography.

Here is some more "food for thought":

https://www.format.com/magazine/galleries/photography/best-food-photography-portfolios