Food Photography anywhere (BTS)

Just wanted to show you a couple of BTS and explain the method I used just before cooking time yesterday.

I wouldn't say it was easy, but it was no big challenge either. This was shot on my kitchen table with a very very small props budget, basically gathering anything we have in the fridge...

Octopus in Bowl (Preparation time: 30-40 Min // Lightroom time: 5 Min.)

It's all about preparation here. I found at home this beautiful Silver and Blue bowl that I filled with Ice and sprayed the outside of the bowl, once cold, with a Water spray (1€ or 2€ at DM)to enhance the freshness feeling.

Herbs come from my balcony and I carefully places some Salt all across the scene, evenly spread on the table.

Lighting wise, I used a Profoto B1 Kit. One in a large Softbox camera right, 2m from the scene to simulate a window light (it was already dark outside). The other one placed behind the plate camera left with a half-CTO gel to warm the scene up.

The whole thing was shot using a Sigma 105mm Macro lens, just perfect for that kind of scene.

In the second pic above, I used a silver reflector to bounce back some of the warm light... Is it better? It's a matter of taste.

Not much to say Lightroom wise here, some light split toning and contrast / Saturation play... But really: that was already very fine on camera.

Last scene of the day with Pears prep (Preparation time: 30 Min Incl. Pears peeling // Lightroom time: 20 Min.)

The difficulty here lays in potential weird reflections. I shot it with roughlythe same setting as the octopus but horizontally mirrored here. The softbox was more closer and the CTO bare strobe was pointing down slightly behind the pot, right.

I added this time a silver reflector at the bottom left to bring back more details on the wooden box.

I tested it first on the pumpkin before cooking:

With the Ball-shaped pumpkin, looking at the shadows, you can get a better understanding on the lighting set up.

Lightroom work consists here again mainly in colour adjustments and a bit of split toning. I advice here to play around with presets (VSCO here) to see if you can get some additional interesting results.

Conclusion:

With a bit of love, Food Photography is easy as long as you start with a pretty clear image in mind and hold the good props. 

DON'T:

Buy the food to take pics of it and then throw it away, especially when it comes to take photos of meat, fish... etc. If you bought it, eat it! Its not worth killing only to get a nice Instagram wall!

DO:

Check your pics on a PC or tethered Tablet to get a better grasp of the finest details. Its all about arrangement and position here. The biggest view of it, the better.