When my friends threw out the idea for the progressive party we had a few weeks ago, I immediately thought that it would be a fun event to photograph and post about. Now, event photos aren’t really my thing normally. People move around and get self-concious when you point a camera at them. Food, well, it just sits there. But I decided to give it a shot with that party. I was pleased with the post and photos but I have to say, I’ve been stunned by the response I’ve recieved.

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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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Maki, over at I was just really very hungry posted her tips for taking better photos in restaurants and indoor markets, including the golden rule (never use your built in flash!) as well as some neat ideas to use those white napkins for something other than wiping off your face. Even if you do everything right taking those photos, low light conditions usually mean extra work in Photoshop. You’ll likely end up with several typical problems:

• Photos that are just too dark
• Photos with a yellow/green cast
• Graininess, color loss or noise due to high ISO speeds (400+)
• Blurred photos due to your hands shaking while trying to hold a long exposure

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Last week’s session of food presentation was delicious and beautiful, but a little less focused on presentation than the previous two classes. We split up to work on our own dishes… mine the Sesame Tahini Noodle salad pictured above, others made beautiful little breads for dipping into some amazing hummus with herb-infused oils, an amazing halibut filet poached in a curry and sherry broth, a savory phyllo strudel, and then some quick little beet salads. Continue reading →

Exposure is simply the ratio of light and dark in your photo. I find that regardless of how carefully I try to shoot, I always want to refine the exposure a bit.

The easiest way to do this is to use the autofix (or autolevels) button in your software. You won’t get any control, but about 80% of the time it will give you a better photo than you started with, and you can be done and on your way. In Photoshop the auto level actually does more than a strict moving of the black and white points… it does a slight color adjustment too, and sometimes seems to bump the saturation. I usually try to do an auto level before I start hand-tuning to see if I like the results. On the rare occasion, it does a better job than I could do.

However, sometimes autofix doesn’t do the job… and you’ll need to manually adjust the levels yourself. This is far less scary than it sounds.
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