Weekend Cooking - Food Photography

While browsing the web, I came across an article on food photography that I read because I would like to improve my food photos when I do cooking posts. I thought that this topic might be of interest to other Weekend Cooking bloggers. So, I researched several more articles and put together this post.

This post was written as part of Weekend Cooking over at BethFishReads.com. Weekend Cooking is open to anyone who has any kind of food-related post to share: Book (novel, nonfiction) reviews, cookbook reviews, movie reviews, recipes, random thoughts, gadgets, fabulous quotations, photographs. If your post is even vaguely foodie, feel free to head over to Beth Fish Reads, grab the button, and link up anytime over the weekend.  (The button is on your right...)

I think that my two main problems are the lighting in my kitchen and the fact that my speckled granite counters look a bit busy as the background in some of my photos.

It was interesting for me to find out that lighting is a problem for a lot of food bloggers who are taking photographs. I have good lighting in the kitchen...its good for cooking but not so much for photos.

There is a huge window and a lot of light comes in and bounces off the shiny counter tops and I get a lot of glare. It is a real problem.

Normally, I like natural light - I take a lot of photos outside. But, I did not want to take the food outside because that would look strange...as in, "Here I am today, demonstrating how to make a pot roast in the backyard." See? Kind of strange.

Well, blogger Dawnviola of Wicked Good Dinner had a solution to this very problem in a post she did for BlogHer. She actually has a cart (see photo) that she uses to take everything to the back porch and she uses a white apron to hide the hot tub! Genius! Wish I'd thought of it!

This other article says something similar with regard to lighting: "Use natural light whenever you can. The ideal set-up is a next to a large window, with a white curtain to diffuse the light.

If you can’t get natural light, don’t be tempted to use your flash. Flash photography is too harsh for food’s delicate sensibilities. It flattens everything out and makes for unappealing shiny spots."

So, I think my big window is ok, but the problem is that that I do not have a white curtain over it to diffuse the light. That is why I am getting happy little beams of light bouncing all over the place. I do not think that a white curtain is the solution right in the middle of the cooking area. It would stay dirty all the time, I am afraid. So, I am going to go with the solution of making a little outdoor photo area.

As I said earlier, I think that my other issue is 'busy' backgrounds. I think the same white apron solution takes care of that. Also, all of the articles that I read suggested a few props and garnishes.

A third source that I consulted, Epicurious, had an article about a "Food Blogging for Dummies" book. I did not know there was a "Dummies" book for food blogging! There are a few excerpts and they are very pro- natural lighting, as well.

I am going to try to incorporate some of these suggestions into future cooking posts, and we will see how they look!!