I’ve been wanting to give Food Photography a try. It’s one of those regions I’ve not explored yet and I think it’s a lot harder to do right than most people think.
The idea for the photo above was to simply take a quick picture of some Tiramasu. I wanted to do as little to it as possible. You see when it comes to food photography there are two big things. There is the actual photography which includes lighting, composition, exposure, and such. I’m not worried about my photography skills. The second half of food photography is stylization, which has to do with plating, presentation, and tweaking the food so that it will look nice on camera. I’m a great cook, but I know jack about stylization so that’s what I’m really nervous about.
For the picture above I didn’t do anything. I put some tiramasu on a plate and put it under a table lamp. I wanted to go as basic as possible to say “hey this is where I started.”
Looking at the picture above I’m really unhappy with the lighting. I think it’s too harsh and too directional, but I kinda knew it would be. For my next attempt I’m going to bust out a small softbox and reflectors.
I also think the depth of field is way off. I wanted a blurred background but I wanted more of the tiramasu in focus. What I should’ve done was some focus stacking so that way it would’ve been easier for me to get in focus exactly what I wanted.
The background in the photo is distracting. That light brown to the left is reallyyyyyyy annoying me. I think it draws the eye way too much.
Finally I think the platting of the Tiramasu is crap. The design on the plate is way too distracting and the color of the design simply makes it worse.
So what’s next? Well sometime in the upcoming week I want to do another shoot with chocolate chip pancakes. I’ll light the shot and try to put more thought into things like stylization and plating, however I still expect the photo to turn out bad simply because I know jack about stylization.
After I get the next attempt done I’m going to start reading Nicole Young’s “Food Photography” book and “Food Styling” by Delores Custer. I’ll then continue to attempt food photography and we’ll see if they can help me impove.