Top 10 Food Photography Tips

1 - Observe! Observe! Observe!

Set aside time to look at images that inspire you and study them. Pinterest is a great resource and it makes organizing photos and concepts very easy.

Where is the light coming from? Is the lighting soft or harsh? Observe angles, composition, colors, etc.

Find images that you really love and try to re-create them. As Pablo Picasso said: “Good artists copy; great artists steal”.

2 - A large window with NO DIRECT SUNLIGHT is your best friend

Using natural light by a large window will take your food photography to the next level. If your window happens to be exposed to the direct sunlight, use a thin white sheet to avoid harsh exposure.

However, artificial light, once mastered, can perfectly mimic natural light and it offers great advantages compared to natural light:

a) Consistent and predictable lighting throughout your shoot(s);

b) Location, weather conditions and time of the day will have no impact on your results.

3 - Light direction - Always side, back or top light

It is key to NEVER EVER have the light source coming from the same angle or direction as the camera. This means on-camera flashes are an absolute NO-GO!

Use one main light source until you’ve mastered lighting and use light modifiers such as white or black cards to shape the light in the desired way.

4 - Choose your perspective and angle for subject

Some foods lend themselves to certain angles, other foods offer more flexibility and you’ll probably need to shoot from several angles before deciding on your preference.

For example, pizza is normally photographed from above since it’s so thin. However, if you decide to focus on small details of the crust or toppings, a 3/4 view could do that justice. In the same way, it makes more sense to photograph a burger from the side (so you can see all the layers, not just the top of the bun).

There’s not always a clear right answer, so don’t be afraid to play around with different angles and see how you feel about the results.

Make sure to always arrange the food and the props based on the camera point of view. However, sometimes you will not know beforehand what angle is best, so be prepared to style your food from scratch all over again.

5 - Consider shooting on the floor

Your floor can be a great option as a background or backdrop to some really great pictures, as long as it’s nice and clean.

Also, shooting on the floor often eliminates the complication of using a ladder to get high enough for overhead shots.

6 - Keep it simple

Start with the hero and then add items that compliment the hero. Very often less is more. You will be tempted to keep on adding in order to create a great shot. Don’t.

You should start with the protagonist and than slowly add in additional elements. If the additions enhance your hero, they should stay, if they clutter the image, they should go.

7 - Plan your props

Think of the recipe and ingredients and use your props to make the picture more interesting and to tell a story about the food.

Use colors in the right way, contrasting colors normally work well. However, feel free to experiment with colors, you can create very beautiful images even with several shades of just one color.

Props should enhance the food and the image, they should not dominate the food. Napkins, cutlery and anything else that adds texture can help make the image more interesting and and richer.

8 - Get some in-action shots

Adding a human element to a food photograph can help to establish context and create a sense of movement.

Action shots bring photos to life and help the viewer imagine making the recipes themselves.

Also, backstage images are great for social media, we are all always very interested to see how a picture was taken.

9 - Crop and composition

An image can be made much more interesting by just changing the crop, hence the composition. Keeping your center of interest out of the middle, even if it’s just slightly off-center, can make the image more interesting.

Negative space can add tremendously to the entire feel of a photo. Your image should take the viewer on a journey throughout the entire photo and all the elements in the image should serve that purpose.

The ‘Rule of Thirds’ is a great guide to creating interesting compositions. Imagine your frame is divided into 3 vertical and 3 horizontal lines. The subject of the photo should ideally be placed along one of those lines, or at one of the points where those lines intersect.

10 - Learn how to use Lightroom

It’s an excellent image management tool built for photographers. Unlike most other photo editing software, Adobe Lightroom does not edit original images, and instead imports a copy you can edit and later export as a different file.

It makes it very easy to find your images based on keywords and to create books, slideshows, prints and more.

Last, but not least, there’s a ton of available free resources online.

What is a Macro Lens?

Macro photography is about taking photos of things very close up, allowing you to see details in the photo that your eyes might not be even able to see.

Minimum Focusing Distance

A macro lens is able to focus at very short distances from the subject and is characterized by a specific magnification ratio. The minimum focusing distance can be as small as 7-8 inches (20-22 inches for regular lenses). These numbers are lens-specific and not fixed, please check the specs of the lens if you’re interested in buying one.

Shot with a Sony FE 90 mm F2.8 Macro G OSS, f/2.8, ISO 64.

Magnification Ratio

Magnification ratio 1:1 means that the size of the subject in real life is the same as the size of its representation on the sensor (or film). A lens with a 1:2 magnification ratio can project an image on its sensor up to half the size of the subject and so on.

Getting so close to the food will allow you to show very fine details and, for pretty small subjects (a cookie, for example), it will allow you to actually fill the entire frame with the subject, since you can get very close to it. Also, macro lenses tend to be extremely sharp. For that reason they are often used in product photography as well. Macro lenses come in extremely advanced versions called ’Tilt Shift lenses’, used for very specific types of shots.

Price

Macro lenses are definitely more expensive than standard lenses, but I believe they should be part of every food photographer’s camera bag.

This is the macro lens I normally use. I think it’s an excellent lens and its autofocus helps a lot in stressful restaurant situations when there’s very little time to nail the shot.

FE 90 mm F2.8 Macro G OSS

When I need a tilt shift lens, this is what I use. It’s a manual focus lens, so I tend to limit its use to studio shoots where I can carefully focus.

PC-E Micro NIKKOR 85mm f/2.8D

What is your experience with macro lenses? Please share your experience with the community by commenting down below. If you enjoyed this information, please share it on your own channels.

Thank You and Happy Shooting!

What Is 'Work Made for Hire'?

From the United States Copyright Office website:

Copyright law protects a work from the time it is created in a fixed form. From the moment it is set in a print or electronic manuscript, a sound recording, a computer software program, or other such concrete medium, the copyright becomes the property of the author who created it. Only the author or those deriving rights from the author can rightfully claim copyright.

There is, however, an exception to this principle: “works made for hire.”

If a work is made for hire, an employer is considered the author even if an employee actually created the work. The employer can be a firm, an organiza- tion, or an individual.

https://www.copyright.gov/circs/circ09.pdf

As a photographer, it’s really important to be familiar with this concept and understand what it means to sign a contract that regards your work as ‘Work Made for Hire’. I’m not here to say you should not enter such a legal contract, after all, if you need to work you might not have much of a choice. What I’d like to emphasize is that fact that the value the client receives when hiring you under the above terms is very high and you should make sure you’re compensated accordingly (see the blogpost about 'Usage Rights’).

I’ve found that many organizations (even large ones) who hire photographers are not really aware of what is being traded when they enter legal contracts with photographers and want to use the ‘Work Made for Hire’ model. If they are not used to confront themselves with issues like these, they tend to regard the work of the photographer purely as ‘buying their time’, stripping away the value of the actual ‘creation’, which is, in fact, the true value. Anybody can sell their time to do a task, not everybody can create something that didn’t exist before, such as a photograph or any other type of art.

It is absurd to think that a photographer should be paid according to the time it takes to photograph and that, if that time is longer, the value delivered to the client is higher. The photographer serves their client by delivering solutions to their needs. The time it takes to actually produce that solution is totally irrelevant when it comes to its value. In fact, a photographer who is very fast at delivering the solution the client needs is actually making the client’s life a lot easier and is saving them time and headaches. Should that photographer really be paid less because the time it took was shorter? If anything, that photographer should be paid MORE.

Giving away your creation by selling the copyright to your images (‘Work Made for Hire’) is a way too common model that photographers should refrain from using when possible, unless compensated accordingly. Keep in mind that once you have sold the copyright to an image, that image can be used in whichever way the copyright holder wishes, including licensing the image further to a third party for as much money as they can possibly get.

Picture this. A small client approaches you because they’ve seen your work and they think you’re really good and they ask you to sign a ‘Work Made for Hire’ contract (maybe this is what they’ve always done because nobody has ever said anything and they are not really aware of the huge value they are receiving when a photographer agrees to that type fo contract). They offer you $500+travel expenses for two hours of your time and 2-3 images in total. Seems like a decent deal, especially if you’re just starting out, right? $500 for a couple of hours doing what you love to do? You’d be crazy to turn it down, right?

Well, not so fast.

Now, imagine that the small company you worked for is bought by a larger company (they automatically acquire the copyright to ‘your’ images). Say that they decide to run an ad in the NYC subway with one of your images. What’s the value of that image now for the client? I doubt it’s anywhere close to $500, since it’s being used to advertise their products or services to millions of people everyday and they are paying thousands and thousands of dollars to the NYC subway in order to do that. Is there anything you can do? Well you can certainly brag about one of your images being used in the NYC subway, but that’s pretty much it. You actually SOLD the copyright to your image when you signed that contract.

What’s your experience with contract-related issues? Please share your experience with the community by commenting down below. If you enjoyed this information, please share it on your own channels.

Thank you and Happy Shooting!

DSLR vs Mirrorless Cameras

I’m a big fan of mirrorless cameras, or at least the one I own, Sony Alpha 7RIII. I think it is superior to my Nikon DSLR on all counts except when it comes to the electronic viewfinder in low light, where I find the autofocus of my Nikon to be more accurate. I shoot 90% of my images with my Sony and my guess is I’ll be 100% mirrorless at some point in the future.

Below are some facts about the differences between the two systems, starting with their definitions.

DSLR

Simply put, a mirror inside the camera body reflects light coming in through the lens up to the viewfinder so you can see what the lens ‘sees’. When you press the shutter button, the mirror flips up, the shutter opens and the light hits the image sensor (or film), which captures the final image. That’s the reason why you see black while the sensor is being exposed.

Mirrorless (ML)

In a mirrorless camera, light passes through the lens and goes right onto the digital sensor, which captures exactly what you were previewing on the digital LCD screen in the back or in the electronic viewfinder you put your eye to.

Size and weight

DSLR: Bigger and bulkier.

ML: Generally smaller and lighter.

Since ML lenses are not necessarily smaller than DSLR lenses, the actual difference between the two systems when comparing body + lens can become pretty small.

Lenses

DSLR: access to a huge amount of lenses from several manufacturers, ranging from cheap to crazy expensive.

ML: Restricted to a small number of lenses from fewer manufactures, though the selection is growing very fast and the gap will eventually close. Also, adapters allow using DSLR lenses on ML camera bodies.

Viewfinders

DSLR: Higher clarity and natural look, you see what the lens ‘sees’, not necessarily what the sensor (or film) will capture .

ML: What you see is what you get.

The advantage of electronic viewfinders is that they can display a lot more information than an optical viewfinder can, including live image histograms, for example, and you can change the settings while looking into the viewfinder. Also, since you are seeing exactly what the sensor is seeing, you will never get a wrong exposure. Lastly, you can review the image you just shot while looking into the viewfinder, which can be an advantage when photographing people (you can keep them engaged and in contact with the camera while you’re adjusting your settings).

Autofocus

DSLR: Used to have a clear advantage, but the gap is narrowing. Also, autofocus performance decreases when using the live-view function.

ML: Latest models can have excellent overall autofocus performance.

Mirrorless cameras autofocus anywhere in the frame, while DSLRs only autofocus near the center. This is another great advantage for the ML.

High-speed Shooting

DSLR: DSLR’s can no longer match the speeds of the best ML’s.

ML: The mirrorless design makes it easier to add high-speed shooting.

The lack of a mirror makes it easier to take image after image, so they tend to achieve higher speeds (frames per second).

Video

DSLR: Used to be the most popular choice with pros.

ML: With superior autofocus in most models, mirrorless cameras provide the best results for most filmmakers.

Image quality

DSLR: They use the latest and best state of the art sensors.

ML: They use the very same sensors as DSLR’s.

Battery life

DSLR: 600-1000 shots on one single charge.

ML: 300-600 shots on a single charge.

The difference between the two systems becomes smaller when shooting continuously and not using the LCD screen to review the images. DSLR’s will, in fact, ‘waste’ a lot of power in order to raise the mirror every time a frame is taken.

Depth of Field Preview

DSLR: Not very good.

ML: What you see is what you get, so the preview is 100% accurate.

Legibility in Daylight

DSLR: DSLR’s finders are bright in daylight, but looking at the images on the LCD screen is difficult in direct sunlight.

ML: You can use the electronic viewfinder and review your images even in very bright sun light.

Price and overall remarks

If you’re on a budget, an entry-level DSLR gives you more than a cheap ML. If we look at the high end models, you get very similar performances for very similar prices.

It all comes down to personal preferences and the best way to know what to buy is to try them both and get a feel for them. If you’re looking to making a large investment into one of these systems, it might be worth renting the cameras you’re considering buying and taking them for a spin for a few hours. I believe there are stores in NYC that will deduct the price of the rental from your total if you end up buying that model within one month or so from the rental date (this information might not be accurate at the time you’re reading this).

What camera do you use and why? Please share your experience with the community by commenting down below. If you enjoyed this information, please share it on your own channels.

Thank You and Happy Shooting!

What are 'Usage Rights'?

It’s a photographer’s job to protect their own work and they do this by being very clear with clients in their contracts. So many photographers work without any legal contract or sign contracts without being aware of the implications and sometimes (some) clients take advantage of that.

The fundamental point is the following. Unless the client is actually buying the copyright to your work (also informally known as ‘buyout’) they are merely ‘renting’ your work, so your fee is supposed to compensate you for the actual work you need to carry out in order to produce the content PLUS the usage rights (the ‘rent’) to the content itself. The way it works is exactly the same as for movies or music. Unless a TV network has actually created a TV show and is the copyright owner of that show, they are just ‘renting’ that content, they are buying the rights to show that content to their viewers.

Usage rights need to be agreed upon by photographer and client through a contract. The types of rights are not really standardized and we’re fairly free to define them any way we want as log as we’re consistent and clear about what we mean. Below are the most common types of rights that I personally use in my contracts. The category in the list can be further subcategorized as much as needed, but I don’t think it’s necessary for the purpose of this post. I just want to bring awareness to the issue, because it’s being neglected by so many photographers out there.

1) Transfer of copyright ownership from photographer to client, aka ‘buyout’.

The photographer loses all the rights to their images, but normally they are allowed to show the work in their portfolio and claim authorship when marketing themselves. Buyout should be very rare and, when requested by the client, they should be prepared to pay a very high price.

2) Commercial Usage Rights

The images are used to advertise or promote something that has commercial value, such as a product or service.

3) Editorial Usage Rights

Images used for content that is informational in nature, not commercial. Typical examples are images used in magazines and newspapers. However, the fact that images appear in a magazine or newspaper does not automatically mean they don’t serve a commercial purpose. You can do advertising in those media as well and, if that’s the case, the usage rights fall into the Commercial category.

Category 2) and 3) can be further limited by using the following variables:

a) Time or occurrences (Examples: 1 year, 1 occurrence, in perpetuity)

b) Market or geographical region (Examples: North America, Worldwide)

c) Type of medium (Examples: Print, Digital, Social Media, any medium)

d) Exclusivity (Examples: exclusive to one single client, exclusive to one market, no exclusivity)

For example:

Commercial usage rights for one year (time limitation) in North America (market or geographical limitation) digital only (limitation to one type of medium), non-exclusive (the photographer can further license the images to more than one client simultaneously).

Price will change based on the limitations that have been agreed upon. Moving down from category 1) or increasing the limitations through a), b), c), d) will diminish the value of the images, hence its price.

The entire picture becomes more complicated with talent. If the photographer is coordinating the talent, you need to make sure that the usage rights for talent match those you are contracting with your client.

What is your experience with usage rights? Please share your experience with the community by commenting down below. If you enjoyed this information, please share it on your own channels.

Thank You and Happy Shooting!

Food Photography - Post-Processing Workflow

For years I just used Lightroom and Photoshop to organize and finalize my images. Why do I use the term ‘finalize’? Because I strive to get images that are at least 80% ‘ready’ straight out of my camera and the role of post processing is to bring them to 100% ready, or ‘finalized’.

I would use Adobe Lightroom for:

• Tether / Import

• Ranking

• Adjustments such as contrast, color correction, exposure, etc

• Key-words

Roughly 80% of my images would only go through Lightroom to be finalized. The remaining 20% would also need Adobe Photoshop for:

• More complex adjustments such as removing parts of an image, compositing, advanced filters, etc.

My workflow is now different, why?

When I started using Lightroom to tether my camera to my computer on a regular basis, it became very clear that the tethering functionality offered by Lightroom was not serving me well. I had several stability issues that happened on set with the client present and that didn’t make me look good.

We are in the service industry and our goal is not only to provide the client with amazing images (a ton of amateur photographers and semi-pro can do that!), but also to create a very nice and smooth experience for your client. I believe that ultimately that experience will make the difference between choosing you instead of another photographer. That is why I decided to look at other options to improve the tethering functionality when on set.

I was talking to a photographer friend a few years back and he mentioned Capture One Pro, so I decided to try it and quickly realized that tethering through Capture One Pro was 10x better than through Lightroom. On the flip side, I found that handling very large catalogs (100+k images) was a lot easier and faster with Lightroom, so abandoning Lightroom entirely was not an option.

It took me a couple of months to realize that my optimal workflow would involve all three softwares.

Capture One Pro for:

• Tether / Import

• Ranking

• Adjustments such as contrast, color correction, exposure, etc

Photoshop for:

• More complex adjustments such as removing parts of an image, compositing, advanced filters, etc.

Lightroom for:

• Key-words

• Archive

• Export

Despite dealing with three pieces of software instead of two is more complicated and expensive, I came to the conclusion that it was my best option. On top of that, the new workflow forces me to always finalize and archive all the images I deem interesting (not only the ones delivered to the client), which leads to no projects left unfinished.

What does your post processing workflow look like? Please share your experience with the community by commenting down below. If you enjoyed this information, please share it on your own channels.

Thank You and Happy Shooting!

Food Photography - Lighting Basics

The best tip to improve your food photography? Find great light!

Light is the most important aspect of photography. Your subject can be the most amazing and captivating one, but if it’s not properly lit, it will not convey an emotion and tell a story, which is your ultimate goal.

Roughly speaking, there are two main components to light, I call them 1) DIRECTION and 2) TYPE.

We can light our subject from any direction we want: front (same direction as the camera), side, back, top, bottom and of course any combination of the above. 

The following food shots are examples of light that hits the subject from a variety of angles. By looking at the where the shadows fall, we can identify the main direction of the light. Anything in particular you’re noticing by looking at these food images? You should be able to see that the direction of the light is NEVER the same as the camera. Why? It just does NOT look good, so stay away from that! That means in particular that you should NEVER ever use your on-camera flash (phone or professional camera alike) to photograph your food. NEVER. 

Light coming from the top/back. You can see that by looking at the shadows and on the reflections.

The second variable that we can affect is what I call type of light, which can go from very soft (gives soft and diffused shadows) to very hard (gives very defined and harsh shadows) and that will also play a big role in bringing out that emotional response in the viewer.

I normally shoot with a light source that will give me a relatively soft light, with pretty diffused shadows, yet with some of the darks that go all the way to pure black. These are a few examples. 

Single light source from the left hand side.

Two symmetrical light sources, from side/back.

Single light source from side/back

Understanding how to change the direction of light is pretty straightforward, but how do we change the actual type of light? How do we create a soft vs hard light? That is less obvious. It’s not rocket science, although it’s deeply rooted in physics :) All we need to know is the following:

Larger light —> softer shadows

Smaller light —> harsher shadows

So what is ‘large’ and ‘small’? Unfortunately, that depends. What really counts is the physical size of the light relative to the size of the subject and the distance between light and subject.

Smaller distance light<—>subject —> softer shadows

Larger distance light<—>subject —> harsher shadows

Take the sun for example. It’s a pretty big light, right? Yes, but it’s so far away that it actually looks like a relatively small dot to us and that will give you an extremely hard light. Have you ever photographed a person when the sun is up in the sky and it’s hitting their face? It’s not very flattering, as the very hard light will create a very high contrast with very defined shadows that will accentuate all the wrinkles and imperfection in the face.

On the other hand, you could place a small object such as an apple pretty close to a small window (with no direct sunlight) and the resulting light will be very soft, despite the window being a lot smaller than the sun.

Is this making any sense? It doesn’t really matter, just follow the above rules and start experimenting yourself with different directions and types of light. This is crucial in orderer you to understand what YOU love and develop what your photography style ultimately is going to be.

One last thing: keep it simple! All you really need to get going is one window with no direct sunlight, that’s it!

Thoughts? Please share your experience with the community by commenting down below. If you enjoyed this information, please share it on your own channels.

Thank You and Happy Shooting!

Food Photography - What Camera Should I Buy?

One of the most common questions I get is: “What camera should I buy if I want to photograph food?”. To which I reply: “That depends!”

Some of the questions you need to ask yourself are: What’s my budget? What size/weight can I live with? What functionalities do I need (the variety of options is endless)? Do I want to be able to change lenses? If yes, what lenses are available for a particular brand? Is there a particular type of shots you’re looking to get (closeups, tablescapes, lifestyle, etc)? How do you intend to use your images (huge prints? Instagram only? etc). Once you’ve answered those questions, you can somewhat narrow down the choice, but you might still be presented with an overwhelming list of options.

On the bright side, the image quality of pretty much any camera made in the last 4-5 years (if not longer!) is truly great and you really can’t go wrong, at least if you’re just starting out. So, shift your focus to what’s really relevant: your lenses and your own skills as a photographer! You can buy the most expensive camera on the market, but if your skills and your lenses do not match the quality of the camera, the results will be poor, at least generally speaking.

In fact, if you take a scale from 0 to 10, where 0 equals extremely poor results and 10 equals perfect results, I bet you can go from 0 to 5-6 with your camera phone alone without even buying a ‘real’ camera. How? Buy learning about lighting and composition first, the true pillars of photography. They have pretty much nothing to do with the gear you’re using.

That being said, sometimes new purchases can spark something inside ourselves and get us really excited about shooting more and that’s great! Just don’t use the lack of gear as an excuse not to create, because that’d be a waste of your potential creativity. 

All that being said, here’s what I think you should consider when it comes to lenses for food photography.

50mm - The lens everybody should own

I believe everybody should own a 50mm lens. You can get a 50mm f/1.8 from a variety of popular brands for less than $200. If you’re just starting out, that lens alone will take you extremely far and will allow you to cover a very wide variety of food photography scenarios. It’s wide enough to actually allow for lifestyle shots with people and you can get close enough to the food for beauty shots, for example. It’s truly versatile and it makes a great lens for portraiture as well.

Shot with a standard 50mm lens at f/11. - http://www.francescosapienza.com

Macro lens - The lens all food photographers should own at some point

A good companion for the 50mm standard lens is a macro lens. The main difference between a standard and a marco lens is the minimum focusing distance, which is a lot shorter for macro lenses. A macro lens could have a focusing distance as short as 7-8” / 17-20cm, while a standard one would have 20-22” / 50-55cm. These numbers are lens-specific and not fixed, check the specs of the lens you’re interested in before buying it.

Getting so close to the food will allow you to show very fine details and, for pretty small subjects (a cookie, for example), it will allow you to actually fill the entire frame with the subject, since you can get very close to it. Also, macro lenses tend to be extremely sharp. For that reason they are often used in product photography as well.

Shot with an 85mm macro lens at f/5.3. - http://www.francescosapienza.com

If you already own a 50mm standard lens, I would try and get maybe a macro lens in the range 60mm to 90mm. Macro lenses are definitely more expensive than standard lenses and come also in extremely advanced (and even more expensive) versions, called ’Tilt and Shift lenses’, used for very specific types of shots.

Thoughts? Please share your experience with the community by commenting down below. If you enjoyed this information, please share it on your own channels.

Thank You and Happy Shooting!