Food Photography: Part5 – Telling A Story

Besides angle of the camera, depth of field, framing and lighting, the picture should be able to tell a story.

Before preparing to shoot, you could decide what you wish to show. What time of the day it is, what is the back ground story, how many people are there in the room, where you are working,(inside the house or out in patio) are you using natural light or using a flash.  Lots of things to consider before you get ready to click a picture.

Have taken this photograph from 90 degrees top to down, a more light on the vegetable would have done justice to this picture. also the cup containing buttermilk could be little bit smaller.

This pictures tells the story of preparing a snack in the evening, the potatoes are already peeled (you can see the peels on the tray) the potatoes are grated too, its evening time, and light is from window opposite it. I could have taken a smaller container for putting grated potatoes....

A ready plate of patties served with onion salad and green chutney.

Lighting plays an important role in photography. this picture is taken with natural light coming from the window on the left. Tried many different angles and positions but this image I like the best.

PS: Thanks to Neel for his guidance in his30-day food photography Workshop.

Food Photography: Part 4: Frames

In Food Photography, Framing is the presentation of the pictures. Photographer decides what he wants to show.

Whether he wants horizontal or vertical, what props should he use to enhance the presentation, and the story he wants to tell through his pictures.

This is the original picture I took in vertical frame.  This is clicked at 45 degrees with the natural light coming from window behind the camera.

The decision I need to take will be:

What to include and what to crop out,

Where the subject should be in the reference to the frame

What story I wish to tell

And this is after photo-editing.

The story I wish to tell is that there are two people enjoying the snack with one plate of sauce to share. The shoe below the table shows that its male companion. Spoon covering the puri shows that somebody has shifted the spoon. Some puris missing means that party has already begun…

The actions I have taken are

I have blurred the other plate

Cropped out the extra tray

And adjusted the brightness

However, I am not happy with the spoon covering the puri.

What do you think about this picture??

PS: My food photography guide Mr Neel

Food Photography Part3- Field Of Depth

In food photography, depth of field plays a very important role in popping out the picture from the props. It can tell a story of what the picture is trying to project.

I want to show that there was tea party and a special raspberry tea is my focus.

When we look at the picture, our attention should go to the subject and not be distracted by props.

Props should be used to add to the field of depth that can tell the background story.

These are the pictures I took today.

My food photography guide Mr Neel

Food Photography; Part 2- Understanding Angles

While clicking the pictures of  food, it is important to consider the angle of the subject. If the subject has height, and depth, then it is better to click it at angle of 0-20 degrees to show the depth of the subject. But if it is flat dish like soup, clicking at 90 degres top-down can give better images.

Today I made Spanish egg omelet. Now Spanish omelet is stuffed with veggies and it looks like a cake. Removing this picture from top, did not give any idea of depth of this omelet.,

Later I cut out a small traingular piece and then focussed on different angles to show the depth. A cut piece of the omelet gave an idea of the depth of the subject and the light from the back of the camera,  we could see the texture of the omelet more clearly.

I clicked one more pictures from opposite direction and keeping the small triangular piece next to the the larger one

Which one looks better???

I took another set of photographs with different angles of a pair of red-and-green Capsicums. I took eighteen photographs from different angles and positions. After studying different angles and the light effect, I like this one.

I went on photoediting tool to adjust the light with filters and got this final picture.

What do you think?

Points to take home:

Notice the food structure to decide on the angle

To check for noisy or distracting background

To understand the direction of light

PS: My food photography guide Mr Neel

Food Photography, Part One: Soup Pictures.

Food photography is an art and I will be studying pictures on the net ( with the help of Neel ) to improve my own photographs. I may join hundreds of workshops but I have noticed that the best way to improve your skills is to study the pictures of the experts.

So here I am ..learning photography…..startinga series…. With soup pictures

Some observations on my own soup pictures:

My picture was of vegetable soup but I was distracted by the plate containing meat in the background and I think I should not post two food plates in one picture. The soup color is quite dull, I think I need better light exposure, I went to check the photographs of other bloggers and I have decided to follow them on Instagram, their pictures are beautiful, will try to study them more carefully. What i have noticed is that they have used lots of colors to make the picture attractive, the background is normally dark and the light plays the important role in the picture....

Some of the soup pictures I saw of other food bloggers

The miso soup from this site http://theviewfromgreatisland.com/miso-soup/

My observation:

The picture is bright from the light above…the props are clean and of contrasting colors with background mat a bit darker shade so that our eyes are directed towards the soup at the centre of the frame..

Lemon coriander soup from this site http://www.saffrontrail.com/recipe-for-lemon-coriander-soup-indo-chinese-recipes

My observation:

The picture is well lighted with light coming from above. The props are the things used in the soup like lemon and coriander and the background is the lemon colored checks table cloth that enhances the picture…..

So, I decided to prep up my picture on photoshop, cropped and adjusted the brightness, manipulating it to my satisfaction and this is what I got…

 Like it? would greatly appreciate if you share your soup pictures in my comment box. Thank you