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How to photograph food .. Still life .. How to take the most beautiful pictures .. The book of photography

How to photograph food

Artists who used to paint compositions of inanimate objects often preferred to choose elements that were fixed and of course motionless but still had signs of life: flowers, fruits or foods such as bread, cheese or a piece of ham. They would arrange them lovingly with a bottle and a glass or a game. This composition had some advantages: the flowers were captivating, the fruits were softly colored, the wine was clear and everything was placed in a rich interior decoration
on tables for service.

The photographer has many advantages over the painter: he can take his picture before the flowers wither, before the fruits wither and before the meat loses its freshness. Professional photographers resort to some tricks that greatly annoy and annoy consumers! Red meat coated with oil or glycerine to make it look more interesting, delicious pies that contain nothing but potato puree, wine mixed with a lot of water so that it does not appear to stand in the picture, colored or painted foods, shiny cream made of crushed glass that never melts, a glass of beer topped with a false surface of detergent, cold tea in a glass of cognac... There is no limit to deception and deception.

As for the amateur or non-professional photographer, he will not seek to please the consumer but to express his opinion with a composition that highlights the light and the return of masses and colors.

The distribution of shadows and lights is of primary importance for still life: with spotlights or daylight you can highlight the material, lines and volume. With reflected light you emphasize with strong lights the elements you want to show. Arrange the spotlights and reflectors so that the light is lost in the shadows. You will notice that different materials will receive light in different ways and that shadows tend to become straight when they meet dark objects. The type of lighting depends only on your subject and the desired effect. If your composition is important in the number of elements in it, use a diffused light, avoiding strong shadows that confuse the image by drowning out the details. To interpret a complex group in a faithful manner, the essential thing remains the dominant lighting at 45°, used with a negative reflector placed on the opposite side to lighten the shadows.

Another method involves using the light reflected from the ceiling and walls of a small room painted white. This principle of diffused lighting gives a feeling of volume and soft shadows. There are many techniques at your disposal to give you illuminated parts with different characteristics: dark and opaque or, conversely, light and bright. A piece of cloth placed on the lens or on the spotlights softens the shadows. Coloured pieces of gelatin on the light beams create spots of warm or cold colours. A piece of black paper placed at some distance from the lens gives an image recorded in a decorative frame with blurred edges, etc.

As with all composite photographs, the choice of the point of view is very important: the final view of the image is judged by the lens or at least by the height of the lens, which does not necessarily have to be the height of a standing person's eye. The view of the subject and its perspective are modified by the height of the point of view, and therefore a normal point of view (i.e. along a horizontal axis) gives a faithful interpretation of the sizes and distances of objects. Use a point of view taken from slightly above if you want to emphasise the features of volume and depth. An old trick to give depth to a picture is to cut out a section of a (secondary) object placed on the first plane while framing. The point of view from above highlights the lines of the composition: a composition with a geometric structure is impressive when seen from above. The appearance of your composition will change as you adjust your point of view, even if this adjustment is slight: walk around your subject until you find the most suitable angle.

A composition for a still life can be completely abstract or, on the contrary, very complex: it can be classical and elaborate or, on the contrary, extend into a mass of objects gathered outside any rule - with their mutual identity, colors or shapes. In any case, composing such a composition requires time and thought, but the result is worth the effort. Finally, success depends only on you - the photographer - since all the possibilities of creativity are in your hands, you can choose things freely: the camera, the lens, the point of view, the lighting, and if you do not like the final result, you can repeat the process.

Left: In a photo from my kitchen book: The Gamekeeper. Kitchen and game in a turn-of-the-century decor. In the middle: A chef is photographed in natural light at his gourmet work. Above: Magazine photo: Preparation for a Christmas party.

Adding the human element

A still life with good food as its subject offers new interest and interest if it includes a character: for example, the person preparing the food. This principle is often used by photographers specializing in this type of photography.

Art and technique

Here is another composition that suggests the 19th century: a still life with food as its subject. The grapes and bread have been smeared with glycerin to make them shine. The black mass formed by the ham has been softened and divided by a fork, which has been specially illuminated by a silvered reflector. A photograph taken in large format and with a narrow aperture to achieve the utmost clarity and sharpness. For a still life, everything that goes into the composition must be perfect, and for photographs of earlier times it must be very accurate. This photograph could have been made in 1860 because it does not contain any historically incorrect elements.
MPP camera 10 seconds aperture 45 Ford HP4.

Making a set from the outside

Example of a set recreated in the studio (see the schematic drawing). I preferred this solution to avoid possible accidents in the café and to observe such different image surfaces. The picture was taken through a plate of etched glass.
MPP camera 2 seconds aperture 11 Actachrom model B

Vegetarian face

Head composed of vegetables in the style of the artist Giorini Arcimbaldo. The drawing shows and illustrates how the group was placed on a frame covered with putty to which the vegetables were fixed with pins. MPP camera with electronic flash aperture 22 Actachrom EX.