Polarizer and/or gold reflector useful for food photography or not?

<p>Markus,</p>

<p>The light in your Kiwi shot was better. The lighting is too flat and multi-directional here as Marc said.</p>

<p>There's more going on here besides just bad lighting. Look at the difference in the arrangement of items and the composition between this and your kiwi shot. Look at the clump of mushrooms and garlic. It's hard to even tell what they are because of the arrangement.</p>

<p>The kiwi shot is simpler with less items, a shallower DOF and a more graphic point of view. Try to not include everything in one shot, use a longer lens for a more interesting perspective, control and modify your lighting to emphasize the surface qualities and form of your subjects. Don't bounce your lighting all over the room. Strive for a simpler, cleaner and more photoGRAPHIC look.</p>

<p><img src="https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-_BkRvkVluho/TOEYvMFWFUI/AAAAAAAAF-0/nq-KTD__aLU/s800/FxT021.jpg" alt="" />Rather than enhance with a polariser it might be better to enhance with more subdued surroundings. Like - have a main actor and some supporting roles. use bounce and don't be afraid of shadow.</p>

<p>Thanks Marc and Brooks. I think I will have to change my flash trigger setup to get no frontal lighting bounced or not at all, time to experiment a bit more. Brooks, while I understand and agree to the concept of simplification I had/wanted to show all ingredients that go into a tofu scrambled egg replacement, how would you solve that if you cannot leave out some ingredients in a shot, stacking the less important ones a bit more into the background as props?</p>

 

<p>Christopher, that is beautiful photo. How would you solve it if you want to show all the ingredients of a meal in one shot without making the arrangement look messy/busy?</p>

<p>Markus,</p>

<p>Take everything out of its packaging. Find a small glass bottle for the olive oil. Use only a few items per ingredient. Put the large items in the back and the smaller items in the front. Keep it small and keep it simple, no bright color backgrounds. Use a neutral background/surface so the ingredients provide the color interest. Keep the lighting and arrangement simple and classic with a single light and reflector for the subject and a second light for the background. Look at Christopher's gallery for ideas on an elegant and classical lighting and presentation of a still-life.</p>

<p>Thanks Brooks, I will try your suggested arrangement and look at Christophers portfolio.</p>

<p>a sample from the real shooting at the bar yesterday.</p><div></div>

<p>cooking today: vegan scrambled egg made with silk tofu</p><div></div>

<p>Markus, if I might offer some suggestions on lighting, looking at the miso soup for example, see how the bowl casts a hard shadow? That's where a white reflector would work well. I would reduce and diffuse the light in the background on that shot as well. And on the scrambled egg shot, if you were to lower your camera angle, and "rake" a diffused light low across the subject with a white reflector opposite, you'll see nice texture in the food and have a much more pleasing shot. Hope that helps!</p>

<p>Devon, thanks for looking and commenting. The light setup for the scrambled egg was like you suggested, a low angle slave flash from the left with a white diffuser to the right, trigger flash on camera hot shoe bouncing away towards me? I did not want a lower angle for that shot but make it look like an egg with that yellow plate and reversed colors. I also used a reflector for the miso soup (and a too strong flash from right behind, I agree) but it must have been placed too far away to have an influence on the shadows, I would have loved to have an assistant holding it close for me, it's too much work to do it all alone :-)</p>

<p>Markus, Busy is not bad; all you need is organised busy. This is what goes into a vegetable soup cube. Very crowded, but there's a central subject built up from colour:<br>

<img src="https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-sdLwjEBiIXE/TO-M_dkm7xI/AAAAAAAAGGA/RieqmlwKmjc/s800/vegII.jpg" alt="" /><br>

Or use layout - confusion blending into order (old fashioned tilt shot):<br>

<img src="https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-fkfKLcbzfOw/TO-M_Ug-CzI/AAAAAAAAGGA/s3yx217lzeU/s800/recipe.jpg" alt="" /><br>

Or move in orderly fashion from raw to to cooked:<br>

<img src="https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-eVDh-LB_yJg/TO-M_WK2AqI/AAAAAAAAGGA/dqyIZZ4VPV0/s800/polenta.jpg" alt="" /><br>

Whatever you do, put light edges against dark edges and vice-versa.</p>

<p>Wow Christopher, those shots are gorgeous! You have an amazing eye for style, color, and lighting. They're almost like classic still-life paintings that you could hang on a wall.<br>

And Markus, on the egg shot, I see your point about the angle. When I was talking about diffusing the light, I meant diffusing your flash with a softbox or umbrella. And if you can avoid using any front flash at all, maybe getting some inexpensive triggers so you don't have any flash on your camera, that will really help.<br>

You can also get inexpensive reflector holders that you can hook to a light stand, thereby giving you an extra set of "hands". Sometimes I end up propping my white board against a stack of books on the table if I want it really close. You do have to get creative when working alone, that's for sure!</p>

<p>I can only agree Christopher, what great images and the concept behind really teaches me something. Thank you all for your honest critique, I now have a lot of fresh input into this new challenge. I will try to break down the complexity by first caring about that badly controlled trigger flash and softening the main flash light with a small (shoe) diy softbox and then care more about the composition and food styling. I'm glad when I can return in a new thread showing my progress. At least I'm a great prop shopper, I found some really nice plates and fabric today second hand in Zurich :-)</p>

<p>Enjoy the journey! For me at least, learning and seeing my progress along the way is really fun!</p>

<p>Thanks Devon, I made a small DIY softbox out of a shoebox now listening to your advice and also cooked some pasty based on different nuts and tofu and mushrooms for the very first time, it tasted good ;-) Here is a first sample with the slave flash shooting into the small softbnox on the left and a reflector close on the opposite side.</p><div></div>

<p>and a second sample</p><div></div>

<p>Markus, I know it is difficult to absorb all of the suggestions and input .... then put them into the work.</p>

<p>However, putting my Art Director cap back on, I am going to reiterate something I said earlier because it can help you keep from flying off into a number of different directions.</p>

<p><strong>You must first decide what personality the photographs will be,</strong> and that decision will determine most every decision that follows. The Food photography links I provided earlier show how different approaches affect how the food is presented to the eye. Same for Christopher Broadbent's excellent work, which is consistent in presentation.</p>

<p>This personality is the road map you can return to whenever you get lost. In Ad agencies, more time is spent making this decision, detailing it, and exploring concepts that communicate it, than in actually producing the finished advertising itself. In effect when working alone like you are now, YOU are the Art Director and designer, the photographer, lighting grip and the prop master ... but each of those tasks must adhere to the master plan ... the original intent.</p>

<p><strong>For example:</strong></p>

<p>One of my food clients was Country Crock from Unilever Foods. In addition to producing the iconic margarine type spread in a Crock, they did a series of country style foods like Mashed or Scalloped potatoes, (among others). The common thread was the Brand personality of "Country" and the foods were all slotted into the category of "Comfort Foods". No Haute Cuisine here folks : -)</p>

<p>As an Art Director, I <strong>did not</strong> look for a food photographer like my previous sample suggestions to you ... I looked for one like Christopher's samples show ..<em>. in fact I would have bid him for some of the national ads we produced had I known of him : -)</em> His approach fits the personality we were after ... rich, bountiful, homey, of the past we collectivly remember ... like Grandma's sideboard groaning under the weight of delicious home-made food from the farm.</p>

<p>IMO, you, on the other hand, are presenting a different personality for Vegan cuisine ... and I think your Kiwi shot was on the right track ... simple, light, airy, natural, with a simulated outdoors feel.</p>

<p>What you can learn from work like Christopher's is design. Note how he uses classic design principles. If you squint at his shots to obliterate the details, notice how the compositions tend to be 1/3-2/3rd in negative to positive use of space for example.</p>

<p>Make a road map and stick to it.</p>

<p>-Marc </p>

<p> </p>

<p>My stuff is pretty ordinary run-of-the-mill tabletop. But I can help a bit with a couple of tips towards 'appertizing' food.<br>

Your last two shots:<br>

Too much fill. A large white card is always enough and sometimes too much. Large = non-directional.<br>

When shooting down on the table, place the soft source above and beyond the table so that the shadows come towards the camera.<br>

<a href="https://picasaweb.google.com/cjbroadbent/Food?authuser=0&feat=directlink">Here are a ton of simple tabletop shots </a>done like the so that you get the idea…</p>

 

<p>Marc and Christopher, I will have to reflect a bit about what you wrote and look closer at all the different samples. I feel like getting a bit lost at the time and maybe I should start using "dummy food" for the styling and not my real lunch and dinner because now I only have a few minutes left for the placement and lighting before it gets cold or I am too hungry ;-)</p>

<p><em>".....maybe I should start using "dummy food" for the styling and not my real lunch and dinner because now I only have a few minutes left for the placement and lighting before it gets cold or I am too hungry ;-)"</em><br>

Seriously?</p>

<p>Two unrelated comments--I've used "dummy food" a number of times, but only to set up the shot so that the hero food didn't "wilt" in the meantime. It can be anything that mimics the color and shape of the food. Alternatively, use one of your not-so-pretty samples, and save your best for the shot when you're ready.<br>

The other thing I wanted to mention about some of your shots, especially the last two, is that they look overly sharpened. Once you get your lighting and styling down, you shouldn't have to do too much post editing. That's true of any type of photography really--try to get as close as you can in-camera without having to edit too much afterward.<br>

If you can afford it, I think that you'd really get alot out of the PPSOP classes I mentioned before, even if you just take the first one. It took so much of the guesswork out of it for me, and I grew leaps and bounds with those classes! You have to work hard, but it's well worth the money.</p>

<p>My point of questioning Markus's last post was not the use of stand-in food but whether it's worth offering suggestions when there's not a real attempt at photographing, lighting and styling food but instead just an exercise in photographing one's lunch before it gets cold.</p>

<blockquote>

<p>My point of questioning Markus's last post was not the use of stand-in food but whether it's worth offering suggestions when there's not a real attempt at photographing, lighting and styling food but instead just an exercise in photographing one's lunch before it gets cold.</p>

</blockquote>

<p>mmh...So you're picking up on that, too?</p>

<p>Yeah, but then I have to wonder if that's Markus's dutch humor coming through. Not sure.</p>

<p>I can see it's a daunting task teaching aesthetics in food photography in a thread like this. But you can't get any better than Marc and Christopher and others for free professional advice on the subject. I'm trying to figure out where the disconnect is I see with each attempt Markus posts. Something's not getting through. (a suggestion..dial back on ACR/LR Clarity and Fill slider maybe, the dark edge halo's are getting way out of hand).</p>

<p>This subject made me want to try something along the lines of Christopher's "Johan Vermeer" style of lighting and found it not as difficult as I thought to pull off just using a 100 watt GE Soft White bulb (incamera Tungsten preset) in a utility reflector dish...of course with some post processing for clarity and color and not as refined and professional as Christopher's who seems to be eating quite well (hah! hah!) from the looks of his top shelf gallery samples.</p>

<p>I'm wondering if Markus should practice with continuous light like maybe an open window or a common lamp like I did to see how the color and shadows work together. That's how I had to do it to do pre-visualization. The subsequent computer preview of the shot was not what I saw with my eyes. So I'm guessing flash makes it even more difficult to know what you'll get in post which may point to why his shots look so over processed.</p>

<p>I'm assuming Christopher's using flash and not continuous lighting and as well has been at it long enough to know just where and how far to place the flash in getting those exquisite tonal roll offs from highlights into shadows shown in his work.</p>

<p>I've learned one thing from this thread and that is achieving professional looking food photography isn't as easy as it looks.</p>

<p> </p><div></div>

<p>Another odd and unpredictable thing about light and digital camera's is what I have to refer to as the "compounded" light effect.</p>

<p>What I saw in the actual scene with the fill light to the right in the bottom corn chip image didn't look like there was enough light. I had one 100 watt GE bulb in a utility lamp about 3 feet away on the right angled low and the other 100 watt bulb as key light hand held about a foot away and adjusted the angle until I got the accented texture I could see with my eyes and took the shot. Moving the lamps ever so slightly didn't make big changes to my eyes by comparison to what I saw on the computer.</p>

<p>IOW slight subtle moves and changes to light produced more noticeable results than was originally seen by eye. It's something to consider. BTW the top lime image wasn't shot with a fill light to the right. I added fill using ACR's fill slider and adjusting Black slider farther to the right which added more definition in the shadows.</p>

<p>Nice lemon Tim. Lighting food is really much easier than anyone thinks. One light source only - ever. Anything stuck in an umbrella will do with digital. I use a 650W movie lamp. With large format transparencies Heavy duty flash is unfortunately a must for clean colours and stuff that moves - flash in an umbrella or soft-box.The source needs a hard centre for gentle shadow fall-off, so throw away the double diffuser. You are looking for soft reflections on the surface of food and heavy but gentle shadows to separate the bits and pieces. Leonardo said "penumbra, penumbra, penumbra".</p>

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