Food porn and how to shoot it at Blogher2007

Helping foodie bloggers and photographers get more comfortable adding beautiful food imagery to food posts.  Visualization is important :)  This Technical Blogher session focuses on basics for shooting food and edible lovelies at large.  Should your photo shoot not go so well, Jan offers some Photoshop tips.

• Lara Ferroni (www.cookandeat.com)
• Bea Peitre (www.latartinegourmande.com)
• Moderator - Jan Kabili (www.photoshoponline.tv)

Bea Peitre
Bea says that she only moved to an SLR a year ago - but believes that users of point and shoot cameras can still get amazing shots.  Always uses remote control and tripod with arm (likes to stand on chairs).  Buys props constantly - different ones for every shot.  Remember value of mixing and matching dishware.

When prepping for a food photo shot, does all grocery shopping the day before to give maximum time to the actual shoot the next day.  If possible, is very worth taking the time to tweak plating and composition of photos.

Consider what kind of emotion / story you want to tell with photo and then decide on composition, angles and shots.  Is food going to be eaten alone?  Outside?  At a party?  How does it make you feel?  Consider shape of food and reflect it in the shot.

Play with depths of field - be creative with shot... stage food on cups or platters to make higher.  Play with geometry and patterns.  Keep an eye on the details - they'll pop out at you post shoot.

Can use small plates, bowls, glasses with small servings - you don't have to make as much food and it looks the same on film.

Bea takes about 50-60 shots for each photo she uses and posts.   She doesn't always cook things all the way through to keep color integrity - and she'll have to heat things up anyway. 

Juxtapose shots (overall and then detail) to show even more interest.  Play with raw ingredients - can focus on just small pieces of the produce for cool perspective.

Use combos of fresh/raw ingredients and finished product for a cool food story type shot.   Think of non-traditional containers to hold food and ingredients. 

Reflectors and styrofoam help manipulate natural light - play with shadows and light and color.

Action food shots - taking bites of food, pouring liquids, steam, crumbs, cutlery in various positions.

Lara Ferroni
Has Cook and Eat blog - and runs a food styling and photography blo.  Technology background at Microsoft, quit to travel with her husband.

Turn off front flash of camera - makes food look weirdly shiny/greasy.  Using tripod means you can set long shutter time, as food won't move - so no motion blur.

Work with white balance - cameras need to be told what conditions you're shooting in.  Set WB using white paper.  Read your camera manual to learn limitations :)  If you've made the mistake already, you can try

RAW = native format the camera shoots in (not an actual image, just binary).  It's what the sensor in camera captures, so it's far more flexible to edit in RAW editing software.  Lara uses product called 'Capture One'.

Focus issues - check point and shoot camera manuals to see if you've got manual focus.  Pay close attention to your favorite details of the shot and grab it!

Cover windows with vellum to make windows look frosty (so they become a soft box) - parchment or office paper also are good to diffuse and filter the light.  Play around with background colors - color drastically changes

Play with props - place food in something unexpected.  Play with cutlery and shadows.  Don't always follow the rules.

Distance from camera truly matters - close to camera, more blurriness all around.  Pay attention to the rule of thirds - don't place food/product immediately in the middle of the photo every time.  Envision a tic tac toe board across your photo and place points of interest in those intersecting areas.

Set ISO as high as possible lets you shoot in darker spaces (although 1600 makes photos grainy) - but does change quality of photo, but won't be blurry.  If you do get some grain, put into black and white where it can look better.

Jan Kabilli
Photo too dark?  Use layers palette -- Duplicate Layer (now have 2 copies) -- Click Layers dropdown and select Screen -- continue the steps until desired results achieved.

Photo too light?  Duplicate layer - Click Layers dropdown and choose Multiply

Contrast not right?  Play with layers (histogram, can also view histogram on camera) -- want black tones across spectrum of histogram -- Layer top link dropdown -- New Adjustment Layer -- Levels -- Okay -- move white slider and drag until its under first black areas -- voila!

Still not the right contrast?  In Levels box - click on gray arrows and slide around until right colors are achieved.