Still-Life Photography: Food - Keys Darlington

I was asked by a nightclub that I shoot event photography for to come in and do some images for their new restaurant website. I agreed on the understanding that although I had not done any food shoots live before I would give it a go. The results are mixed and some work clearly better than others.

The setup:

Nikon D7100
Sigma 85mm lens
Tokina 11-16mm lens
Tripod
Nikon SB 700 flash gun
Light stand
Soft box
Remote trigger for camera

I followed advice from a book from CCAD's library called "digital food photography 2" I kept it to just one light as this seemed the easiest to control with limited experience. Using a big reflector at the front to push some light back onto the subjects.

The shoot was done around mid afternoon in winter which did cause some problems with the natural light and white balance. As it neared dusk the right-hand side of the images got darker being next to a window. I was compensating this with longer exposures but really I was only adding more of the orange lights from the room and not really making it any better for post production. All food shots were taken with the 85mm lens set at quite a wide aperture, between f2 and f4.

It was pretty much a baptism of fire. The manager who has since left told me during the brief he would be there to look over everything and organise each dish as it came out etc. This didn't happen at all and i was left at the mercy of a young waitress just bringing them out from the kitchen as the chef saw fit to send them. Good communication with the kitchen staff is imperative to both make your life easier and to get the results they are expecting from what really should have been a full days shooting not just 2 hours.

The second part of the shoot was to feature some of the newly furbished kitchen area. I put the Tokina 11-16 lens on the camera and attached the flash to the top for these to get more environmental type shots

Finally some drinks which were done in about 5 minutes. There isn't much I can say other than I should have spent much longer preparing the surface and insisting they made them more watery to let light through from behind. Shot identically as the food with softbox from behind and 85mm lens.