Food Photography

[shumicpi]

I was thinking to try my hand in product photography and started with taking pictures of jewellery. Soon I find food photography amazing to do. Is there are good demands in food photography profession? Can you share your thought on this?

[JR1]

Errr

I do this as part of my living

Recently did a recipe book USE where possible available light, I hate flash, even studio flash and only use it when I really have to.

1. STURDY tripod
2. Remote shutter release
3. Tether to a screen/laptop/tablet if possible makes adjustments soooooo simple
4. Any DSLR half decent the more mp the better if possible
5. LOWEST ASA possible, I use 64iso if possible but happy at 200


Ideal accessories

Smallish 1/4" paintbrush for adding gravy, custard etc to missed parts
I find frozen peas look better than cooked
Stanly knife blade to remove over cooked spilt gravy from dish sides
"Photoshop "

[IzzieK]

I am still a student in food photography and food styling but I don't do it to make a living, like most things I do nowadays, but for the pleasure of it because I love cooking. I might as well throw that interest with photography, just like my crafts and art stuffs, and flowers and gardening. If you persists in your learning and your ambition and dreams, you will one day find yourself popular amongst some clients. In short, don't give up.

[Inkanyezi]

I don't know a lot about the market for food photography, but I have known, and assisted, people that did it for a living, mostly photographing food for a weekly magazine. There's also one person who I coach on the subject that does a lot of food photography, although she doesn't sell many photos. Her main art is making cakes. She's the fastest learning pupil I ever saw, and still with less than two years with the two arts of making cakes and photos, her pictures are amazingly well done, as are her cakes. She has recently started a business making cakes, and it is on the rise.

She has not sold many pictures, but her main income now is from cakes and workshops on making them, like the art of making sugar paste flowers.

Her website is http://linavebercake.se/
I think you might get inspiration by looking at her pictures. The page is in Swedish, but if you click around a bit you'll find a treasure of pictures of various cakes and techniques of making cake decorations of sugar paste.

I'd like to add a few things to the list JR1 did:

• I prefer untethered, for the liberty from cables. There are several mirror-free cameras around that can be used from a pad without cables. Most of them are from Samsung, some from Sony and also from Olympus, all connecting to a smartphone or surfpad via WiFi. With a pad, you have a large image for composing and focusing. It beats any viewfinder and is much easier than SLR.
  -
• For lighting, I always prefer window light. It is easy to use lamps for creating window light. Just hang a white bedsheet on the wall and direct your lamps onto it - the light from it resembles that from a window. Most, if not all, images at linavebercake.se are made with window light. As your subjects are mostly fairly immobile, you don't need a lot of light. Exposure time can compensate when the light level is low.

[JR1]

Actually there is a vast un tapped market

[HaseebM]

Actually there is a vast un tapped market

Why do you want competition.

[JR1]

After christmas this year there will be another 50,000 PLUS, more professional photographers with new cameras (what a joke )

[Stagecoach]

After christmas this year there will be another 50,000 PLUS, more professional photographers with new cameras (what a joke )

But there will also remain some professionals turning out mediocre work and some amateurs turning out excellent work.

[flashback]

It's funny the animosity sometimes towards anyone that gets a DSLR.
For every group of graduating law students, doctors, military officers, etc, there is always one person (sometimes maybe a tie) who has the lowest class ranking. They may be a 'professional' but it in no way ensures they are any good, only good enough to complete the minimum requirements. So unless someone was born a professional photographer one is likely correct in assuming that even the *professional* started out somewhere. Let's hope everyone gets that same chance.

[Inkanyezi]

Almost fifty years ago, when I first started working with photography, I was convinced that I was competitive enough, after seeing the work of others. Now many years later, I understand that taking good photographs is just one of the legs to stand on for a photographer, the other, more important, for making money, is entrepreneurship. Anything goes really. We have scores of wedding photographers over here doing not even mediocre work; rather something I would not want to mention, but they make money, they are professionals, although their customers might benefit if they also learned photography.

I never ventured into that morass. But I have successfully coached a few individuals in learning the howto of photography. In the case of Lina, I saw her potential and was scared that I would destroy what I saw in her. I was very careful not to guide her about props and composition, but mostly on photographic techniques, to achieve what she wanted to do. I also directed her to other mentors when she began asking about things where I knew others would serve better. So for courses of printing and professional colour management, she consulted professionals in the field.

And she did not become a professional photographer, but a very gifted pastry cook and she is running her own business.

But she has the very precious gift that I wish every professional photographer should have; the gift of a vision for the images she wants to capture, combined with the skill to achieve what she has visualised.

[Stagecoach]

I was thinking to try my hand in product photography and started with taking pictures of jewellery. Soon I find food photography amazing to do. Is there are good demands in food photography profession? Can you share your thought on this?

The demand for you to be engaged in food photography as or within a 'profession' is going to depend upon some of the following;

a) Your location
b) How far you are prepared to travel
c) The amount of businesses wanting and using photographs of their food within a) and b) above
d) The standard of your work
e) The value for money of your work compared to others work
f) How much profit margin is acceptable to you
f) Your marketing skills

I'm sure there are more......................

[IzzieK]

Achieving good food shots is very interesting to me and I am learning a lot from you guys...thanks.

[Inkanyezi]

Going back to Lina's page, I see that a lot of material she had there has been removed, so there aren't so many images. Her old blog is still alive and kicking though, although she doesn't add to it: http://bakministeriet.blogspot.se/

It's got archives back to 2012, so you can see her progress. I see also now that it has been slightly more than two years since we started on the photography journey.

There's where the treasure of images resides. Mind that all those flowers are made of sugar paste, edible, but not really made for eating. Stems are reinforced with wire.

[William W]

I was thinking to try my hand in product photography and started with taking pictures of jewellery. Soon I find food photography amazing to do. . .
Can you share your thought on this?

Please answer question 1 and then question 2a, if applicable -

1. Have you made a NET PROFIT after WAGES with your Jewellery Photography venture?

2a. If “no” then identify and state here why, before diversifying into another business venture.

2b. If “yes”, congratulations.

I expect that you will have already identified that Branding and Marketing are an integral basic key – so Market the Food Photography in a similar to your Jewellery Photography and look for Branding links between the two streams.

But be careful not to grow/emphasise the Food Photography at expense of what is presently your Core Business Stream.

WW

[William W]

The demand for you to be engaged in food photography as or within a 'profession' is going to depend upon some of the following;

a) Your location. . .

I'm sure there are more......................

Yes. I concur.

I too would have put "your location" into the major defining factors.

I have no idea of the potential market for Food Photography in Bangladesh and its surrounding areas - I'd could in no manner state either there is an 'large untapped market' or 'no market' or anything in between - without at least visiting the area for few weeks and investigating the potential, better though to work there, for a while.

WW

[rpcrowe]

It's funny the animosity sometimes towards anyone that gets a DSLR.
For every group of graduating law students, doctors, military officers, etc, there is always one person (sometimes maybe a tie) who has the lowest class ranking. They may be a 'professional' but it in no way ensures they are any good, only good enough to complete the minimum requirements. So unless someone was born a professional photographer one is likely correct in assuming that even the *professional* started out somewhere. Let's hope everyone gets that same chance.

Always remember: Half of the doctors graduated in the bottom half of their class

[Inkanyezi]

I come back to this thread after seeing another gifted lady, Sarah Tuck, taking food pictures. She uses the same techniques as Lina does and her lighting for the "Dark" images is similar, while the "Light" gallery seems a bit more elaborate. http://fromthekitchen.format.com/gallery

[Shadowman]

I come back to this thread after seeing another gifted lady, Sarah Tuck, taking food pictures. She uses the same techniques as Lina does and her lighting for the "Dark" images is similar, while the "Light" gallery seems a bit more elaborate. http://fromthekitchen.format.com/gallery

Both light/dark seem to be about the relationship and environment where those foods would be consumed; so they work well for the particular subjects.

[FeatherMonkey]

http://www.nadinegreeff.com/food-stories another one that's pretty sharp find her photos going towards coffee table book work.

[Shadowman]

http://www.nadinegreeff.com/food-stories another one that's pretty sharp find her photos going towards coffee table book work.

Interesting compositions.