I’m a bit late finding this, but if you haven’t seen it yet, and were curious about how the relatively inexpensive Lowel Ego Lights worked for food photos, check out Steamy Kitchen’s excellent post that shows how much difference they can make. Brilliant.

One of my early posts on Still Life With walked through my workflow of taking food shots in my studio (ie, my kitchen). Well, I recently realized how much a seemingly small change has made to my overall workflow. That change was starting to shoot tethered to my laptop, and it’s had numerous impacts on the steps I follow.

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One common technique for still life and product photography is floating the subject on a background, usually a single color and often white or black. These images are then easily placed in catalogs or websites without having a whole square photo look. They seem to simply float on the page. (Somewhat ironically, my floating photo here doesn’t float, since my background isn’t white!)
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How do you make cold drinks look appealing? You need some condensation. And not just any condensation… condensation that holds up long enough to get your shots in.

Typically, food stylists use a mixture of glycerin and water, carefully sprayed on, to make gorgeous little beads of water. But, I don’t typically keep bottles of glycerin around in my kitchen and I certainly don’t want to drink out of a glycerin coated glass.

To stick with more common, real food, you’ll give up some flexibility in shooting as well as the look of perfectly formed droplets. But, since I strongly prefer natural food styling, I started experimenting with ways to get the best looking condensation the old fashioned way – water and a temperature change. Continue reading →

Studio lighting is a science as well as an art. After picking up several books on the subject, I’m starting to get used to some of the terms like bounce and snoot… but I’ve still got a long way to go, there is so much to take in.

Let’s start with the somewhat obvious. Different light has different color characteristics. Anyone who’s worked in an office is certainly familiar with the blueish glow given off by florescent tube lighting. Or, you may have heard of $1 million dollar light, the term that movie studios use to describe the golden quality of light just before sunset (it’s called that because at the time the phrase was coined, it took about a million dollars to replicate the same quality). The lighting you use will have a dramatic effect on the color composition of your photos.
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I am always a bit envious of people whose kitchens are gloriously covered in granite or marble. My poor little kitchen’s counter tops are simple white veneer that is starting to peel up in spots. Not exactly photogenic. Luckily, I have two new butcher block topped islands that we were able to pick up at IKEA for a very decent price. And today, I made another fantastic discovery.
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