That’s what I did today when I was working on the cover shot for a cocktail book I’ve been shooting this week. Thought you might enjoy some of the setup shots and one of the (unedited) outtakes. Not exactly high-tech!

Maybe it is the economy, but I’ve been picking up more cocktail shooting assignments lately so I’ve been spending quite a bit of time studying cocktail photos. The photo to the right is a Mint Julep that I shot last year for Portland Monthly.

Today, I happened upon this great interview (on The Pegu Blog) with photographer Sara Remington discussing her approach to shooting Artisanal Cocktails. For even more great stuff from Sara, see her fantastic blog.

I find that I just want to bring home all the little details of the places that visit. I want a memento to remind me of the silky smoothness of the goat cheese ice cream we had in the century old farmhouse in the Loire Valley or of the bright crisp redness of the sweetheart cherries from a Yakima farm stand. My photos aren’t proof of a visit… they are portals that transport me back whenever I need a little escape.

Here are a few tips for making the photos from your next getaway magazine-quality:

Light spilling into a cafe at lunch makes for a great meal and great photos.

Find the local and seasonal stuff. Resort travel has it’s benefits, but when I travel, I like to find the little, local places that serve things I can’t get at home. It may sound obvious, but tiny little bakeries and cafes, farmer’s markets, street food stands, classic roadside diners or local brew pubs all offer great opportunities for memorable photography. I tend to scour magazines like Sunset, Food & Travel (especially those with articles by Melissa), Gourmet Traveller and Australian Vogue Travel & Entertainment (for the dream trips) to find hints of the hidden gems, plus find some great inspiration for photos. Without Sunset magazine, we would never had found the Sparrow Bakery in Bend, Oregon, shown above, which is well off the main tourist strip.

Bring your camera to lunch, not dinner. Getting great shots of food in dimly lit restaurants is nearly impossible without a tripod… so give yourself a break and try to get shots of the food you eat during the day rather than at night. If you really want a shot, and don’t have much light, set the ISO on your camera to 1600 and try to steady the camera as much as possible. Don’t forget to set it back! Using a dSLR with a fast lens (like a Canon Digital Rebel XSI with a Canon EF 50mm f/1.8) will also give you better results than your average point and shoot camera, although it won’t slip into your pocket. You can find out more about what I shoot with here.

Bright sunlight may feel good on your face, but it is too harsh for food photos.

Pray for a cloudy day. For travelers, a beautiful blue sky day is a blessing. But, for photographers, all that sun can create harsh shadows which can spoil food shots. A bright but cloudy day is much better for food shots, letting you see all the color and texture of the dish. If you can see a shadow from your food, try to move the plate to a shady spot of the table, with the light off to the side.

Action and context bring your photos to life.

Food on a plate is kind of boring. Take a few close-up shots of your food, but don’t forget to back up and get some of the environment or try to capture people interacting with the food. Photos with context that show some action will bring back more memories. This shake (From McMenamins Pub also in Bend, OR), for example, is a little more interesting glugging from it’s tin.

Know when to put the camera away. Some restaurants don’t want you taking photos of their food. I don’t really understand why anyone would have a problem with it, but since it is their restaurant, it’s best to respect their wishes. If you want to take photos of someone working in the restaurant, it’s polite to ask first. Most people are more than happy to let you and a shot of your server or bartender, even just their hands serving up your meal, will add a new dimension to your picture.

Watch the light. I said before to bring your camera to lunch, but the best times to take outdoor photos are in the mornings and evening, when the light falls across rather than from overhead. Evening light has a beautiful, golden color that is wonderful in photos.

Know a few things about your camera. Your camera will try to guess the lighting conditions you are in… but you’ll get better shots if you tell it. This is called setting the white balance… on most point and shoot cameras, there will be settings for indoor versus outdoor, and cloudy versus sunny days. Check your manual, and get in the habit of setting this, rather than leaving it on Auto for best results.

How about you? Do you have any photo tips for traveling?

And, if you have some great shots from your food blog that you posted in March, I’m hosting Does My Blog Look Good in This over on my own food blog, Cook & Eat. The deadline to send me your stuff is April 27th, so don’t wait!

Technorati Tags: Food, Photography

One common technique for still life and product photography is floating the subject on a background, usually a single color and often white or black. These images are then easily placed in catalogs or websites without having a whole square photo look. They seem to simply float on the page. (Somewhat ironically, my floating photo here doesn’t float, since my background isn’t white!)

To achieve the look, you need a simple tool called a sweep. It’s really not even much of a tool… it’s just something that you can hang a piece of paper (or cloth) from so that it has a very gentle curve where it shifts from vertical to horizontal, which “erases” the horizon line you get with a table and a wall. You can make a sweep yourself in about 2 minutes with a good sized cardboard box. Just cut it down so that there are two perpendicular sides that are large enough to meet your needs. Then, you can prop it against books or cans to hold the one side upright, and simply tape the paper along the top.

Easy enough to make… but I actually went out and bought one. Why? Well, it’s not just because I seem to get an itch around the holidays to buy stuff when technically my husband and I are on a “buying ban.” It’s because the sweep that I bought has some nice features and came with a whole mess of sweep paper, for a fairly reasonable price. I got the Lowel EGO Sweep, which is a slightly translucent white material. Unlike cardboard, the sweep actually lets a bit of light through the back… just enough to minimize the shadow that can happen on the vertical surface area. When shooting on white, this is particularly helpful as it saves much Photoshop clean up work.

Lowel EGO Sweep Table-top Background Support Stand & Colored Paper Backgrounds

The trick when floating a product on white is that pure white, the one that actually matches #FFFFFF, the background color of most websites, is really hard to get right out of the camera. Shadows creep in where you least expect them… and then when the image appears on real white, you see the edges of the photo and your whole floatiness goes away. When you put white paper that has some translucence to it on a dark surface… you are going to end up with shadows, and your white background is going to be darker than the white highlight on your subject. The Lowel EGO sweep doesn’t completely eliminate this, but it does help.

Plus, it has a cute little “tail” on the back, so it stands up by itself and little clips to hang the paper or cloth without using tape. For $30 (US), it’s a good buy.

To get the whites as close to pure white in the camera as possible, I do a couple of things. First, I set my white balance. If you are using the any of the presets on your camera, then you are probably not getting neutral whites. To ensure that you are getting the cleanest white possible, it’s best to shoot a test shot of a white card (I use a piece of photo paper for this) and use it to set your camera’s custom white balance. By doing this, you should be able to get great white balance even in mixed lighting conditions. If you are dealing with natural light, be aware that as the light changes because the sun moves or a cloud goes by, your white balance will change. This is unavoidable and means that there will be some adjustments you’ll have to do after the fact, else you will be constantly shooting a white card and resetting your WB.

The other important step is checking the image histogram, if your camera can display it, to make sure that the exposure is looking good. The far right represents whites, so if there is nothing on that side of the graph, then the whites are coming out as grey. On the flip side, you don’t want too much towards the right or you’ll be blowing out the highlights. (more on exposure here)

Once I’ve taken my shots, and gotten the background as close to pure white in the camera as possible, it’s time for some fine tuning in Photoshop.

First, I clean up any dust/scratch kind of stuff and get the exposure and color as close to accurate on the main part of the image as I can (#2). I don’t worry about the background white at this point… I just fix the subject.

Then, I create a new layer with a mask. I fill the layer with 100% white (#FFFFFF) and the mask with 100% black (#000000). Filling the mask with black makes the layer 100% transparent, and the original images shows through. Then, painting on the mask, I start slowly paining white around the edges with a fairly large, very soft brush, getting as close to the subject as I can without painting over it (#3). This lets the real white show through. Then I go back and forth painting (#4) with white and black on the mask, using smaller and smaller brushes, until the subject is completely showing from the original image, but the floating area is pure white. The subject’s shadow is always the trickiest part, and will always turn out best if you are close to true white in the camera. If you can’t get the edge completely right, it’s usually better to be a bit to light than have a darker or color casted halo.

It takes a bit of practice to get the hang of this, but the good news is that since you are working on the mask, it’s easy to make corrections. In the end, you want a subject that is on pure white, but that doesn’t have ugly halos of gray (#4) or blue or yellow around it. The mask should look something like a flat black shape of the image.

I typically keep a TIFF version or a PSD version of the file with the layers preserved in case I need it later. It is quite a bit of work to have to repeat it all!

Technorati Tags: Food, Photography, Tips

One of the trickiest parts of food photography is dealing with reflections. Whether it’s shiny plates, silverware, glassware, or even the food itself, the reflection can either make the photo gorgeous or look sloppy. I often find photos of my own that I can see a tiny me and my camera captured in glint of a wine glass. It’s very hard to avoid when shooting with minimal studio equipment in a small space.

Taking control of the reflections, however, can be really fun. Pro studios do this all the time with special patterns, called gobos or cookies, that fit over lights to cast just the right shadows onto the subject to set a particular mood. There are gobos with all sorts of window-related patterns, such as blinds or french door molding, as well as more intricate designs like trees or clouds. One good book on studio lighting that I’ve found, Still Life and Special Effects, has some great examples of this complete with illustrations of where each light should be. One of my favorites shows the reflection of a magazine article in a spoonful of liquid called You should know it’s good for you (pg 206).

“Still Life and Special Effects Photography: A Guide to Professional Lighting Techniques”
(Roger Hicks, Frances Schultz)

But, even if you aren’t using studio lighting, you can do some interesting things with reflections. It just takes a little planning and a little playing.

First, figure out what pattern you want. For the tea shot above, I used a crocheted table cloth with leaf-like patterns that I picked up at a thrift shop. But, you can use paper cut outs or even a plant to cast interesting shadows. Flat patterns are easier to manipulate though, especially if you don’t really want the shadow-caster to show up in your shot.

Next, you’ll need to position your pattern between the reflective subject and the strongest light source (like a window). Then, you’ll need to take a few shots at the angle of the final shot you want. Because you won’t want the pattern to show up in your image, you probably want to shoot from above your subject or fairly close in. Getting the shadows to fall just where you want them will probably require a bit of moving both the subject and the pattern around, so having a tripod makes this whole process considerably easier. Getting proper exposure is also important so that the shadows stand out, without being overwhelming or harsh… a little exposure adjustment in Photoshop later can usually compensate if you don’t get it quite right in the camera.

Of course, sometimes you end up with great reflection shots that are completely unintentional, like this photo that I took at a roadside picnic in France. I was focused on the wine glasses and capturing that roadside feel, and completely missed the cloud reflections until looking at the photo later.

Technorati Tags: Food, Photography, Tips

One of the simplest ways to improve your food photography is by controlling the lighting with a reflective surface called a bounce. A bounce can be any white, silver or gold material that reflects light. While the effects may be tricky to see on first glance, they will make a big difference in the overall look of your photos especially when you are using limited natural light that is coming in through a kitchen or dining room window. You can use a bounce in a number of ways.. to subtly lighten shadows, to bring out detail in a dark part of your subject, or even to control reflections. The key is understanding which type of bounce to use and where to put it.

Bounces come in a variety of shades of white, silver and gold. White or silver bounces will reflect the light back onto the subject without changing the light’s color, and I find that’s generally what I want for food photography. Silver bounces are subtly different than white in the quality of the light, slightly increasing the lighting contrast. A white bounce will help maintain a smooth, soft light.

Gold reflectors, on the other hand, change the color slightly, imparting more warm tones (yellows and reds). If you are already shooting in natural light or with Tungsten studio lights, it’s likely your image will be fairly warm already.

While most of the time, you’ll be looking at ways to add light, there are times when there is actually too much light getting reflected back onto your subject. This is when you need a negative fill which absorbs light coming toward it rather than reflecting it back on the subject. A simple piece of matte black poster board works well, and is very inexpensive at your local art supply store.

One of my favorite bounces to use is styrofoam… it’s free and if you spill something on it, you really don’t care. I rescued 3 1′ x 4′ pieces of white 1 inch thick foam board from some speaker boxes we were throwing out. They are big and thick enough that I can prop them between my camera tripod and the table that I’m shooting and get some really nice, diffuse light to open up parts of the image. I also have a couple of small styrofoam blocks that came out of some other shipping container. These are only 4″ x 6″, but almost 2″ thick, so they stand up really well and are easily positioned around any subject. For example, I was shooting some Italian plums this week with a lot of diffused backlighting. The plums were a gorgeous blue color, but fairly dark overall. I positioned the bounce between the camera and the subject, just out of view but as close to the plums as I could get.

The light from the window behind them was very lightly reflected onto the front of the plums bringing out their color and texture. The only difference between these two photos is the bounce.

Another important function of the a bounce is reflection control. If you are shooting a reflective surface, you are likely to end up with a lot of noise in the reflections. I was shooting some photos of my Kitchen Aid mixer the other day, and noticed that if I looked carefully, I could see the picture that was hanging on the wall in back of me in the surface of the mixer. Worse, there was a big dark “spot” on the mixing bowl that I found distracting to the overall image. By holding a bounce to the left of the mixer, those reflections became solid white, and looked more like reflected light than something that shouldn’t be there.

I also have a couple of collapsible disc reflectors in a sheer white fabric. They can function as bounces or as diffusers if placed between the subject and a light source, and because they are collapsible, they are easier to carry around with you than a big 1′ x 4′ piece of foam board.

These bounces also have more cool gear associated with them… grips and stands to let you position them without having to grow a yet another arm. Of course, you’ll have to have room for all those bounces and stands to fit around your camera and table and other props. But don’t think you have to go down this path to be professional… you can get amazing results with the cheaper (or free) materials once you get the hang of it.

PS: If you are wondering why I was shooting plums in a cup, I’m in the process of making my own sourdough starter from wild yeast… the white stuff on the plums contains a lot of it, so I soaked them in the water I used to make the starter. I should have a Cookbook 411 post on it in the next few weeks if it turns out!
Technorati Tags: Food, Photography

I think that one of the most common questions I get is how do I position my lights to get my food shots. There are simple answers, but they aren’t complete because different moods call for different lighting, and different situations only allow for so much futzing with lamps. In particular, when you are in the kitchen, you have to figure out the right light for the job… just going with natural light (simple!) or bringing in some additional lighting help. This basic shot of strawberries that I was prepping for a dessert shows the difference between lighting conditions:

The image on the left has no added light, just a little bit of natural daylight coming in through the window behind them on a very cloudy Seattle day. The image on the left (as well as the first image in this article) is lit with a single, diffuse studio light. Neither has been retouched except for the auto-white balance correction in the camera. Because I shoot with a tripod, both shots are clean and clear and the differences are subtle. The studio light image “fixes” some of the shadows that are in the natural light version and it’s a bit warmer. They are both good, usable shots. In this case, I prefer the studio light version… it just looks juicier to me.

To recreate that version, you’ll need to be shooting with some natural light and a basic lighting kit, that is, a couple of well powered lights with some way to diffuse the light. This could be something like the Lowel Tota-brella, or a softbox, or simply a sheer material placed between the light and the food. They all work, but you’ll get better, more even, diffusion with the first two than the third. For the natural light, you want daylight. If you are shooting at night, this technique won’t work as well and you’ll need some kind of additional light source (preferably another good studio light, instead of your kitchen overhead lighting), or you’ll end up with areas that are underexposed.

Place the natural light (ie, window) behind the scene if at all possible. If you can’t, don’t worry too much… you are mainly getting the ambient light anyway. If it’s really bright out and the light is streaming in, you’ll need to cover the window with something sheer, to soften the light.

Place one studio light, with the diffuser, to the side and above the food. You can put it a bit in back or a bit in front, depending on how the subject is placed. For “in progress” food shots, I use one light because its easy to move in and out of the kitchen as I’m working and I don’t get too tangled up in cables like I would if I had multiple lights going. It should look something like this:

Notice that the light actually faces away from the subject, and the umbrella bounces the light back onto the subject, giving very nice soft light. Some diffusers (even umbrellas) are meant to work the other way… the light goes through them rather than being reflected. In that case, you’d set up like this (except, I’d probably try to get the light a bit higher and pointing more down into the pot):

When I’m shooting my final, finished dish, I do get a bit fancier. I typically work with two Tota lights, and place one of the lights (with the diffuser) a bit further back and above the food. I place the other, closer, directly to the side. I will also use a Disc Reflector (you can cover a sheet of cardboard with aluminum foil for a cheap one of these) to cast a bit of light onto the front to prevent it from being underexposed. This really only adds a tiny bit of light, but can really open up any shadows that may be forming. You can use these in the kitchen as well, but it’ll be tricky unless you have a really, really big space to work with. I’ll talk more about using multiple lights, including introducing a spot light in my next lighting post.

I’d encourage you to play around with different light positions, and write down what you did in a notebook to look back and compare with the results. Start with this basic table-top lighting scheme, and adjust to find your own style from there.

Technorati Tags: camera gear, Food, Photography, Tips

Let’s start with the somewhat obvious. Different light has different color characteristics. Anyone who’s worked in an office is certainly familiar with the blueish glow given off by florescent tube lighting. Or, you may have heard of $1 million dollar light, the term that movie studios use to describe the golden quality of light just before sunset (it’s called that because at the time the phrase was coined, it took about a million dollars to replicate the same quality). The lighting you use will have a dramatic effect on the color composition of your photos.

The color of light is referred to as color temperature, and it is measured for some ungodly reason on a degrees Kelvin scale. Kelvin temperatures are actually negatives, so warm tones are between 1900 and 3200 degrees Kelvin. Neutral tones between 3300 and 4000. Cool tones are 4000 to 6500. If you think about natural light for a second, you’d put sunset at the far end of the warm spectrum and a Seattle overcast day at the far end of cool.

Note: Setting the color temperature in a photo editing application adjusts for the light the photo was taken in… for example, if you set it to the cloudy end, it will make your photo warmer assuming that it if you took it under cloudy skies it will look too cold. In Photoshop’s Raw editing tool, this is particularly confusing because you enter a lower number if you want your image cooler and a higher number if you want it warmer.

Now, you might be tempted to think that if you want neutral colors… that is your whites to look white… that you should go with neutral light. Unfortunately, it’s not that simple. Warmth and coolness do affect how color appears, but not in a uniform fashion. Some warm bulbs give the truest overall color reproduction. The lighting type (and even the quality of the individual bulb) has a lot do to with it as well, and as this chart shows, it’s pretty nutty. The quality of rendering is measured on a scale called the CRI – lower numbers render less color and can look washed out. Higher numbers indicate that color will come through naturally. There’s lots of math involved with this, and if you are really interested, Wikipedia has some great explanations and equations on why this all makes sense.

As for me, I’m going to take their word for it. For indoor, artificial lighting, incandescent bulbs (like this one) rate the highest, closely followed by tungsten halogen. Daylight florescents (those cool spiral energy saving bulbs) aren’t quite as good, but are ok.

Here’s a sample of tungsten halogen and natural daylight:

As you can see, with proper setting of the white balance, they are pretty close but the natural light is warmer. (You’ll have to ignore the fact that one is backlit and the other side lit… my ‘studio’ has it’s limitations). In particular, notice the blue hints at the top and on the handle of the pitcher in the tungsten version. I could correct those in Photoshop fairly easily, but then other parts of the photo might start getting too yellow. In the natural light, you can see more warmth in the shadows, particularly in the lower left corner.

So, different lights, different color tone and different color rendering.

Unfortunately, that’s not all. There is a different kind of temperature you need to be aware of… that is actual heat given off by the lamps. There are hot lamps and cool lamps. Hot lamps (like the incandescent and tungsten halogen listed above) run continuously which can be great because it allows you to see exactly what the light will look like and the quality of the light is warm and inviting. But they do get really, really hot and that can be a problem for food photography, particularly for things that should stay cool like ice cream, fresh herbs, salads, beverages and so on.

Cool lights (strobes) on the other hand omit quick, high intensity flashes of light. The light often has a blue cast, and without some sort of color balancing is likely to give you very cold looking results. But, the food stays fresher, longer. Strobes are also typically harder to work with because you can’t see what the end effect will be until the strobe fires.

Despite the fact that you have to work quickly, beginners are typically recommended to start with continuous, hot, lighting. It’s easier to get a feel for how lighting positions and strengths will affect your photography and the lighting systems are significantly cheaper.

For the most basic continuous lighting setup, there is a fantastic article here on using work lamps that you can find at your local Home Depot. Two dual head work lamps and stands that you can use indoors or out will run you only about $100. Jesse, the I Faked It site author, also has some great tips on photoshop… definitely worth checking out.

I’m using a slight step up from that… the Lowel Tota-Pak tungsten halogen lamps. This set comes with a small umbrella and reflects light to the subject rather than lighting it directly. The result is a really nice soft lighting. Another thing I like about these are the size. They are small, so I can move them around my very small kitchen without much problem or even collapse the stands and set them right on the counter. I also recommend getting a small spotlight to go along with this set, since the indirect lighting doesn’t let you highlight specific areas much.

“Lowel Tota-Pak, Light Kit with Tota-light, 750 watt 120 volt EMD Lamp, Stand & Tota-brella.” (Lowel)

I haven’t shot with more than this, and I’ve never shot with strobe lighting, so I’m reluctant to make a suggestion on those. If you have a system you like, please feel free to talk about it in the comments!

Once you know what light you are shooting in, don’t forget to set the color temperature on your camera… If you do forget (like I always seem to), you’ll have a lot of extra color correction to do in your shots.

Technorati Tags: Photography, Tips