Now this is what a Hamburgers all about!

IN-N-OUT

Three images combined in order to put the flame where I wanted, and didn't want it.

One more...then I eat!

This technique is easy...more or less.  Lit from above with a soft box, two white cards, one camera left one camera right and burning news paper on the bottom.  I don't even read the paper anymore anyway, to much bad news so I burn it instead.  Might as well get something out of it!


One more, the fire (effect) is done using only lights. Orange gel on background, red from under.

Let there be fire

Peppers lit with flash and continuous tungsten light (tungsten from behind for a warmer feel) one overhead softbox and flash with red gel in background.  When I figure out how to make flames, real or in photoshop, I'll add them in.

Simply grapes.  Shot with a shallow depth of field.  Oh where to focus?

Well here we go again with cupcakes.  Knowing where to focus on close up shots, which about 90% fo food photography is, is a bit of a game of hit and miss.  I always remember the 1/3rd in front 2/3rds behind rule but it depends on what lens your using and even more important, what f stop your set at.

I know the style of the day is really shallow depth of field which if done right looks great. I'm finding that a smaller f stop gives me a better chance of hitting the right zone while giving me somewhat of a nice shallow depth of focus.

Thanks to Erin for making some really amazing cupcakes which tasted as good as they look.  A true art form in and of itself!

I'm back!  I'm finding that the hardest thing in shooting food is making it look good in the first place. As I said before I'm in no way a food style expert, far from it. As a matter of fact I spent far more time messing with pasta than light placement. I'm spending a lot of time looking at real food photography and trying to figure out how they did it.  Anyway heres todays effort, hope you like it!

Cheers!

Taco night rocks. Between taco night and pizza night I don't know which one I like best but it's close...very very close indeed.  I grilled up the boneless skinless chicken breast, just sea salt, cracked black pepper and garlic powder and Erin made the pico by chopping onion, roma tomatos and cilantro and adding salt, pepper and lime juice.  Wow was it good!  Erin also whipped up a spice cake for dessert. She makes the best cream cheese frosting!

No wonder I'm putting on the pounds.

Breakfast yesterday morning was buckwheat pancakes. I only ate one, a little goes a long way. I made a bunch just for the photo.  I like the drama.

Let's start with breakfast

I'll have to write the copy for these on Thursday.  I've been working 12 hour night shifts and have to go again tonight SO SLEEP IS FIRST ON THE LIST TODAY!

But first I have to clean up the kitchen...

After several years of doing mostly "people photography" such as weddings, events and portraits, I decided to try my hand at food photography.  I already shoot related images for stock photography with some success,  but now I decided to really put some energy and effort into learning this new skill.   I'm by no means a skilled chef or a food stylist so that in itself will be one of my main challenges.  My daughter Erin can really come up with some wonderful recipes not to mention mouth watering results so as much as I can I will try to coax her into helping me out.  My purpose for this blog will be to document my journey in learning and  hopefully mastering the art of food photography.  Keep in mind I have never done this before so it could get ugly!  I plan to document everything, the good and the bad, and I will share it all here and attempt to explain what I think worked and what didn't and why.

So here we go,  I'll start out with this post of some samples of already finished work, some of the images will have a watermark for copyright reasons.  Feel free to comment or ask questions.

Enjoy!