Category: Class Topics (Page 2 of 3)

Needed

• Camera or cameraphone
• tripod or way to secure the camera
• a main light – can be a clamp light
• a diffuser
• a white card for reflection
• a background material
• some food items
• a few simple props – a plate, a fork, a sprig of herbs, a wooden spoon

Guest Speaker

Jill Keller

Food Stylist

The food stylist shops for the food and prepares the food for the shoot. The food stylist also moves the food on the set and is responsible for making it look as good as possible.

Food Photography Lighting Review

1. Use one main light. Turn of or block other light sources.
2. Diffuse the main light. You can put diffusion in front of the light or bounce the light off a wall. The farther in front of the light the diffusion is placed the more the light will be diffused.
3. Fill the shadows by reflecting the main light into the shadows with a white card.

Lighting an Overhead Shot

Specular Highlights – bright spots of light that are the result of direct reflection

Telling a Story

Start with what you want the photograph to say. It can be something simple like flavor, or fresh, or natural or home comfort or elegance. This will help you figure out the hero of your photo ie what is most important and how to style the photo.

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Basic Composition

1. Pick the background to compliment the food.
2. Odd numbers tend to look better than even.
3. Try off-center placement and/or the rule of thirds
4. Use diagonals
5. Use shallow depth of field
6. If shooting from a three-quarter view, include something that creates perspective either through converging lines or diminishing scale
7. Restrict the palette but select colors to compliment each other

Styling Tips

1. Use herbs or spices as props
2. Keep props simple- a knife or a wooden spoon or other kitchen implement, a fork or spoon, a plate or a napkin, a placemat

3. Use tweezers to move small items on the set.

4. Use a brush to remove extra crumbs you don’t want.

Lab Exercises

Three-quarter view shot

Overhead or flat lay shot

Homework

HW 6 – Telling a Story with Food Photography

Needed for next week

We will be doing a product shot with ingredients. You will need a clean, unopened example of the product and at least one fresh ingredient for that product. You may also want some props – what ever is appropriate for your product.

Needed for this class

• a camera or cameraphone
• a tripod or other way to secure the camera or cameraphone
• a few vegetables
• a light
• a diffuser. It can be made from cardboard and tracing paper
• a white poster board or card
• materials to use as backgrounds. Some suggestions: a cutting board, an old baking tray

Guest Speaker

Carla Georgina Torres

Class Schedule

Oct 27th – Food Photography Lighting Basics

Nov 3rd – Food Photography: Telling a Story, Speaker: Jill Keller, Food Sylist

Nov 10th – Food Photography: A Product and its ingredients
Guest Speaker: Jonathan Lopez

Inspiration

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Food Photography Lighting Basics

Food photography is the art of making food look appetizing for the camera.

The single most important factor is lighting.

The light should come from one direction. Most food photography uses side light or back light.

The main light casts the shadows.

You can buy or make a diffusion panel.

To make one:

• take a piece of cardboard
• cut out the middle so the cardboard is now a frame
• tape several layers of tracing paper or other translucent paper over the middle.

An alternate to diffusion is to face the light away from the subject and bounce it off a white wall on to the food, spreading the light.

The fill light brightens shadows.

We will not use an actual light but instead a piece of white poster board that will reflect the main light into the shadows.

Distance

The distance between the light source and the subject will allow you to control how it looks. This is such an important factor because of the Inverse Square Law.

The Inverse Square Law states that the intensity of the illumination changes in inverse proportion to the square of the distance from the source.

Translation: The light’s brightness drops much faster closer to the light source than further away.

Generally, when working with a clamp light as the main light, set the main light a bit further from the subject to spread out the light. Hold or fasten the diffuser in from of the light. The farther in front of the light the diffusion is set, the softer the light will be.

Set up the white reflector as close to the food as possible and not have it in the frame.

Angle

The two main angles of view used in food photography are: Overhead and three quarters which is between eye level and overhead.

Resource

Lab Exercises

Lighting

Homework

Food Photography Basics

Critique Etiquette

1. Please give the presenter the respect of your full attention.
2. Any comments or questions you have during or right after a presentation should be directly related to your colleague’s photography.
3. When you comment on your colleagues work, start with the positive. If you have a suggestion for improvement, make that second.
4. It is very important that the presenter hear from a range of students in the class. Your opinion and judgements are important. Offer your thoughts generously. Do not leave the work of responding to the others in the class.
5. Conversely, please do not speak over your classmates.

Terms

Framing: How the frame brings together the elements inside the rectangle juxtaposing them, creating relationships between them

Types of shots: how much information is in the frame

• a long shot
• a medium shot
• a close up
• an extreme close up.

Frame within a frame – use elements in the frame to enclose the main subject and draw attention to it. A frame within a frame can be a window or door or it can be items in the foreground such as branches.

Angle of View:  describes the camera position in relationship to the subject. The angle of view may be: 

• a worm’s-eye view
• a low-angle
• eye-level
• a high-angle
• a bird’s-eye or aerial or overhead view
• an oblique angle.

Rule of Thirds – Instead of placing the main subject in the center of the frame, divide the frame into thirds horizontally and vertically and place the main subject at one of these intersections.

Fill the Frame –  (get closer) – do not leave empty areas that do not add to the composition and plan to crop in later.

Perspective-the representation of a 3-dimensional space on a 2-dimensional surface by converging lines, diminishing scale and/or atmospheric perspective.

Depth of Field-The distance between the nearest and farthest points that appear in acceptably sharp focus in a photograph. Depth of field can be shallow or extensive. While the term includes the word depth, depth of field refers to focus.

Frozen Motion-Motion is stopped and captured in the frame with a fast shutter speed.

The Decisive Moment: A term coined by Cartier Bresson- “the simultaneous recognition, in a fraction of a second, of the significance of an event as well as the precise organization of forms which gives that event its proper expression.”

Blurred motion-moving elements blur with a longer shutter speed.

Lighting Direction – front, side, back, top under

Quiz

Quiz 1

Needed for this class

• Lightroom Classic or Lightroom Photoshop App

Terms

Aspect Ratio-the proportion of the width of the image to the height of a 2D image

Clipping-the intensity of the light falls outside of what can be recorded by the camera and there is a loss of detail.

Color Profile-the data for a digital device, such as a printer or monitor, which describes its gamut, or range of colors. Used to match the gamut from one device to another.

Exif Data-information stored by the camera in the file.

Gamut-range of colors

Histogram- a graphic representation of the tones in an image. A spike of data on the left side indicates underexposure, on the right overexposure.

Neutral Value-RGB values are equal or gray

Non-destructive Editing-adjust the image without overwriting the original image data. Instructions are written to a sidecar file that tells the software how to interpret the image.

White Balance-the setting that adjusts for the color temperature of the light and that will make a white object appear white or a gray object a neutral value

Workflow-the tasks to be performed and the order of those tasks. When working with Lightroom to optimize the appearance of your photos, the order of the steps makes a difference. Follow the workflow recommended below for the best results.

Global Corrections

Global corrections adjust the entire file. In Lightroom classic, this includes everything in the basic panel: White balance, Tone and Presence. In the Lightroom/Photoshop App, it includes the controls under Light, Color and Effects.

The Histogram

The histogram is a graphic representation of the tones in the photograph. It is a guide to exposure decisions. Most images look best when there is a full range of tones from black to white in the image. But there are no iron clad rules.

Below is a terrific photo shot by Bryan Rodriguez. The expression of the card player is perfect and you can feel him making a decision about what to play.

Looking at the histogram, we can see that most of the tones are dark. There is no true black or white. To raise the contrast of the image and use the full tonal range, use the following adjustments:

• blacks slider to the left until the data hits the left side of the histogram
• whites slider to bring attention to the right until the date just touches that aide
• shadows slider to +50 add detail to the dark areas
  

In this photo of the pier in Coney Island, the histogram shows that is underexposed. But we also know that it is an evening scene and that there is nothing in the photo that should be bright white.

A few tips for Lightroom Mobile:

1. To access the histogram, tap on the image with two fingers. If you can’t really see the histogram background, brighten the display.
2. To see the image before your corrections, press on the image.

Lightroom Workflow:

1. Classic: Lens corrections and Transform panels. Correct lens aberrations and Transform, rotate and straighten.
   App: Optics, geometry.
2. Classic: Crop. Left below the histogram. Keep the lock on to maintain aspect ratio.
   App: Crop
3. Classic: WB on basic panel – Set white balance.
   App: Color
4. Classic: Exposure section on basic panel – Read the histogram to set exposure. Most images should have the widest possible dynamic range, meaning that there should be data across the entire histogram.
   App: Light
   Both:
   a. Exposure slider-use to adjust the overall tonality
   b. Set black point-shift double click.
   c. Set white point-shift double click.
   d. Use shadows slider to brighten mid tones.
5. Classic: Presence section of basic panel – Adjust clarity (mid tone contrast)
   App: effects
6. Classic: Presence section of basic panel – Adjust vibrance.
   App: color
7. Classic: Presence section of basic panel – Use saturation with care: +10 at most
   App: color
8. Classic: Detal panel – Sharpen-amount at least 50
   App: detail

Lightroom Classic Resource

Lab Exercises

Global Corrections

Quiz Review

Homework

Midterm Project

Needed for this class

• a camera or cameraphone

• a small stuffed animal maybe 4 or 5 inches tall.
• a light – a $10 clamp light from the hardware store will be fine. That is what I used for the examples. You may also need an extension cord
• 1 or better yet 2 pieces of white poster board. You may also use a white sheet or towel to create a white surface.

Terms

Ambient Light-The light that is already there sometimes called available light

Continuous Lights-Always on, may be incandescent, halogen, fluorescent, LED

LED-Light Emitting Diode-super energy efficient

Lighting direction: front, side, back

Quality-direct, diffused

Color Temperature-describes the color of the light. Cool colors are above 5000K and warmer temperatures are below. Meaning the RGB values are equal.

White Balance-the means to adjust the color temperature so that grays and whites are neutral

Resource

Photography Lighting Lesson-Remember the Egg- Joe Edelman

Inspiration

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Lab Exercises

Lighting Direction

Childhood

Homework

Midterm Project