I own a digital camera and I take photos of food for this blog. But, that is where the similarity ends between my photos (that you have seen here) and the photos taken in our photo studios for the recipes that we develop in the test kitchens for our newsstand recipe magazines and cookbooks.
Our professional food photographers and food stylists were shooting photos last week, for a magazine that will be at newsstands this summer. I went over to the studios to see how they were doing and decided to bring you along with me via my camera.
Here is Nancy (the food stylist) preparing a new recipe. Sometimes a friend will ask me if we put marbles in the bottom of a soup bowl to make it look like there are more veggies in it than there are or if we use shaving cream instead of whipping cream because it holds up better under the hot lights—and my answer is, “NO!” for both questions. We have a very strict policy to use only the ingredients in the recipe.
After Nancy finishes a recipe and makes the food looks yummy, she brings it to "the set". The set includes a surface to put the food on, some big pieces of cardboard to reflect light, any props for the background and of course, the camera (which you can see on a tripopd in the foreground, facing the food).
Andy (the photographer) and Nancy work as a team to get the lighting and the arrangement of food on the plate just right.
After the photos have been shot, we can look at them right away to make sure they look great. Here is Jackie (the editor) looking at all of the photos that have been shot to make sure they look good and fit in the magazine layout as it was designed.
If you aren't a professional photographer and want to put your photos in a blog, this site offers great basic instructions.
I don't have a food stylist, photographer or editor to help me when I shoot photos at home and so, I must do the best I can without them. My biggest challenge is to keep Jack out of the food before I shoot it becasue it's usually what we are having for dinner.
If you have any photography advice for me, please add it in the comments box.