DSLR Photography Forum

I went into a McDonald's yesterday and said, 'I'd like some fries.' The girl at the counter said, 'Would you like some fries with that?'
- Jay Leno

Food is a universal need, but it's also something that defines us as individuals and as societies. How we experience it will depend on where we live, how we were raised, and who we interact with. How we choose to photograph it will depend on even more complex factors.

For this assignment, look at the food around you. See how people interact with it, what's important about it, and what it means for you. But be warned that this can be a very difficult subject to photograph well.



(please don't include any photos of beverages: they have their own significance and challenges, and may be the subject of a future assignment.)

I've never been highly motivated when it comes to cooking, so when I'm left to my own devices I tend to eat whatever is easiest. Frequently it's the same thing that I grew up on:





You wouldn't know it from the results, but that last one involves two strobes, an umbrella, three black cards, and a reflector card. I have eighteen other photos just like it, but slightly different. I even took some set-up photos. And yes, it was a little stale by the time I was done.

(I'm not a total slacker in the kitchen -- my real lunch was a killer curry leftover from what I cooked last night. I wasn't about to let it get cold while I shot it, though.)

As you said in your first post, to photograph food is very difficult. I think your light in the second picture is really nice. I like it!

I tried the other day with some grapes, but I wasn't too sure about the light. I would love to see your setup, it would help a lot for those, like me, that have trouble with light...

Irma, grapes are a bigger challenge than what I've bitten off here. They're a challenge to compose and arrange, the texture isn't very photogenic, and if you add water to give it a mist or sheen, then you need to choose and control reflections. An interesting idea...

Here's the setup for the second peanut butter photo in my sophisticated home studio:





(As you can tell, I'm a highly organized and very neat person. And I just moved in. Honest.)

On the right side of the photos, I have a strobe facing upwards into a white umbrella. The black card that's held horizontally is shading the back of the plate to keep it a little darker than the middle of the image. The white card is adding fill to the seed-side of the bread, and the two black cards standing vertically are controlling the spill of the highlight flash firing across the surface of the bread. Without this second light there's no highlights across the peanut butter (these highlights are why I chose the serrated knife to spread the PB with) and the sides would be dark. The first PB photo is using just this highlight strobe without the reflector.

As you can see, the setup itself is pretty frugal. Would you believe that my shooting table was originally meant to be an ironing board? My white and black cards are bristol board ($0.85 each sheet) and none of the many clamps that I use cost more than $1. The plywood was scrap from another project, and eventually I'll get around to painting the other side white. The oysters that I bought for shooting my GF's pearl earrings were more expensive than anything else on the 'table'. (Which excludes the pocket wizards...)

Incidentally, that massive black tower near my TV and stereo -- the one that's doing an exceptional job holding spare clamps and my iPod -- is the subwoofer that I wrote about elsewhere. Which reminds me that I need to update that thread...

This one is actually the opposite of appetizing...



... sorry about that.

Hmm I love pizza salami!!

Thanks so much Matt for showing your secrets...

I didn't know anything about those black boards. I need to play with them too. Those are for very fine details I see... but what I love the most is those clamps you have there... Sometimes I wish I were an octopus to hold all things and take the picture too. I see lots of things I don't have.

My setup is in the same condition, don't worry. I still remember that picture I posted when I was working my droplets and I get blush... I like very much you showing this because one gets ideas, and learn... for examble I think I am working my umbrella wrong... I will try as you did here. I will buy the board and the clamps too.

could be a little more in focus but my hunger kicked the ass out of my love for photography

whoa what happened there? I have to get a file re sizer.....weird, the 1st time it saw it it had cut off half the photo

Irma Wrote:I didn't know anything about those black boards. I need to play with them too. Those are for very fine details I see... but what I love the most is those clamps you have there... Sometimes I wish I were an octopus to hold all things and take the picture too. I see lots of things I don't have.

I have an unhealthy obsession with clamps. A scanning error at a major hardware store had bags of 12 assorted plastic clamps selling for $10 -- originally marked at $20, so I bought two. I already had 14 or 15 little metal spring clamps, so I think I can stop buying them now.

Since I was just blocking light I could have used white cards instead of black. The black does stop some incidental light, but mostly I had them out because I was using the same setup to photograph highly reflective earrings.

And I remember your set-up for photographing the water drops. I was impressed by how well you'd gotten what you had to work.

Maxpower, thats a mighty big photo. I hear you about not wanting it to get cold. That's been a problem for me recently.

well Mat, I love your iron board setup, honest, looks professional and produces very sophisticated results as far as I can tell

here are a couple from China. Street photography with ambient light only, both from an ancient small town with narrow alleys, I visited a couple of weekends ago.

Enjoy!


view into a little restaurant. They are almost always open towards the street.


Bowls of local specialties, fried or steamed, offered along the street.

Uli, I was hoping that you'd have some photos for this assignment, so thanks for including them. I still vividly remember the market photos you posted earlier. The person in the background of #1 adds a lot of interest, without distracting from the fish. And the steam in the second one is excellent.

A couple of older ones from a birthday party:

The social significance of food:



And the eating:

thanks Matthew,
I'm sure I have more, have to go dig them out.

these two were taken with the new 50mm/f1.4, which I have fallen in love with.

Uli

Great shots Uli. The 50 1.4 is great on the 5D.

two more from China







These are all about potatoes, deep fried potatoes in the first one, baked sweet potatoes in the second one. The latter are being sold out out huge and rusty old barrels in the streets.
Remind me of Irma's bread shot, too :-)

Uli

I love the textures and colour in the second image. I've wanted to get down to the local chinatown -- just two block from me, and one of the biggest in North America -- to take some photos for this assignment, but just haven't had the chance. Maybe when my E-3 gets here I'll use that as an excuse to take the day off.

I was just browsing a "bulk" Lightroom catalog that has just about all of my old photos dumped into it. Here are some street food scenes from almost exactly a year ago:

a quick quiche


vendor


lite-brite



(an irrelevant aside: I have to say that out of all of the quotations that I've found to introduce assignments with, this one is probably my favourite.)

Uli, I love those sweet potatoes a lot. We eat them in Mexico with a kind of syrup we preapare at home.... They are so delicious. Hmmm...
Your picture really looks Yummy!!

Matt I like a lot your picture of the vendor... I don't know why your picture makes me think as if it were taken in cold weather...

Thanks Irma, and yes, it was just above freezing.

Some from a quick walk through chinatown this morning:





I spent most of the morning shooting at 7mm, and then switched to a 70mm -- 14 to 140 equivalent -- it was a bit of a shock.

Mat, wasn't it you looking into food hygene in Toronto at one point? somehow the quiche doesn't look all that clean, but might just be the sprinkled glass in the frront.

do you know that shop (korean?) where they make the little walnut cakes, walnut shaped and with a walnut filling? they must be the yummiest things I ate in Toronto! and it is interesting how they make them, would make a good picture.

Irma, thanks for your comments. Funny how we can bring impressions of our respective home countries to each other, isn't it?

Uli

Chicken soup from Huainan.

I know you will love these






Bon appetit and Greetings to all!

Uli

It's been a frustrating day.
I worked on these serrano pepper photos for hours and ended up chasing my tail around in circles.
The high-key ones are just okay, but the wood background I used for the low-key pictures turned out terrible.
Whenever I got the lighting to bring out texture on the surface of the chilis it would also create highlights in the wood grain.
And I didn't see that while shooting :mad:
I feel like the whole day was wasted--except for the lessons I learned.

Problem is, these peppers will all be completely red by tomorrow morning and it's too late to go out shopping in search of a new background tonight.
The ones on my plant that are still green are too small.

Oh well...I did make progress on improvising bounce cards and diffusion screens and other adjustable lighting helpers so next time I try anything like this it will be much easier.
I think my main problem is that my studio is completely covered with tools and things that can't be moved right now, so I'm having to work in a smaller and more difficult space. It's thrown me way off my game.

I used a two-flash setup.

Grown from seeds, the peppers are delicious.
I made a nice salsa with them and some chiltepins, and we took a few to our favorite mexican restaurant to eat with breakfast this weekend.
(I brought a fine Gerber pocketknife and got some 'looks' from the staff when they saw me slicing them up at the table. )

HI Keith,

I like your images - to be honest we are often our own worst critic. Hope you get closer to what you want to achieve.

Keith,
I think your fist picture is fantastic!! I like it a lot!

Somehow you don't have much texture to work with a serrano. The skin is rather smooth, I think...
I like the surface in #2 did you treat the wood with ink? Looks great!!

KeithAlanK Wrote:Grown from seeds, the peppers are delicious.
I made a nice salsa with them and some chiltepins, and we took a few to our favorite mexican restaurant to eat with breakfast this weekend.
(I brought a fine Gerber pocketknife and got some 'looks' from the staff when they saw me slicing them up at the table. )

My aunt does the same when she is invited for a meal out. She takes her serranos to the restaurant and makes them hotter by rubbing them with her hand on the table. She calls them serranos toreados...

So then you can eat very hot food, Keith.

Thanks.
The photos are growing on me--they are only a few hours old and it sometimes takes awhile to learn to enjoy my own work.
The skin is smooth but can look how I like--when the light is wrong they just sort of glow like the pepper on the right in photo #2, instead of seeing the surface's subtle textures like in the rest of them.
I got the light right, I just didn't see the wood's flaws so a lot of Photoshopping was needed.
I think that's what made me angry--I wanted an easy time with no extensive processing.

Yes, Irma--hot is no problem for me.
My girlfriend's family is from Mexico and I love their cooking.

I grow a different large pepper every year in addition to the little chiltepins.
Anaheims, jalapenos, serranos...next year I think I'll try habaneros.
Home-grown chilis come out perfect for photography--no damage at all unlike store-bought which go through so many stressful and damaging events on the way from farm to store to home.
And then we eat them and they taste better, too.

I'm actually working on a whole series of prints for people's kitchens.
Each photo will have three colors of the same vegetable/fruit.
Red and white onions plus scallions.
Red green and orange (or yellow) bell peppers.
Different chilis of course.
Roma, cherry and green tomatoes, etc.
I'm still planning it all and these photos represent testing of lighting and backgrounds, although I'll probably go with a plain white table and wall for simplicity.
I want more flash equipment so it'll be a few months before I start.

It's funny the way I look very carefully through ALL of the produce at the grocery store then never buy much more than a few tomatoes and onions.

This is a great project Keith... I like it!

Well, I have a recipe book on line with some of my Mexican food recipes. If you think it could help to promote your work, I would place a link or an ad to your site to show your pictures. I have to say that it has some fans already... and more often than not I receive mails with a big Thanks for the recipes...

Amazing that my site doesn't have pictures, but the thing is that I don't have the ingredients to ilustrate my site... I've been thinking about a picture for the home page with some spices we use in Mexican kitchen I can get here, but I haven't done anything yet.

All the best in your project Keith...