I had been eying this book for awhile and decided to take the plunge and pick up this book.
I’d like to think it’s the Bible of Food Styling because it’s 400 pages, chock full of information, tips, tricks, advice, troubleshooting information, and more.
Some interesting snapshots from the book:
The tools a professional food stylist keeps in her toolbox
How to work with difficult foods and make them look good on camera, i.e. melting, ugly, messy food
Unique Obstacles such as how to get bars out of pan and make them look pretty for the camera
Dealing with cookies of inconsistent size and color and recipe tweaks to make them more uniform
Working with Unattractive Food and how to beautify it
Making a slice of pie look perfect in pictures isn’t just slice and go. It’s toothpick and go.
How to Build a Soup (or burger, salad, ice cream cone, sandwich, you name it, it’s covered) for the camera
Everything you see in photos in magazines, ads, or in print was carefully staged and “built”. Soup doesn’t just fall out of the ladle and into the bowl looking perfect.
Great care is taken to make peanut butter pretty and tips are given on how to spread it properly.
I bet most bloggers and blog readers could write the manual “How to Spread Nut Butter”.
And this is the woman, Delores Custer, behind this amazing book.
You name it, this book covers it. I will cherish this book for decades. Seriously, it’s that good.
And I have a lot of cookbooks and books complete with reviews on them all.
From my last post on Movin’ & Groovin’ with Caution, it was interesting to hear what things or people in your life you are a little gunshy or leery of, or that you proceed with caution around them.
Because they’re the pictures I’m most proud of to date, No Bake Vanilla Cake Batter Chocolate Truffles are the dessert du jour.
Questions:
1. Do you have any tips or tricks that have helped you take better photos? Not necessarily just food pictures either, but all types of photos.
I know photography isn’t everyone’s passion. I never used to be mine, but that has changed and I love it!
For anyone who has ever tried to take pictures of anything from food closeup shots to nature scenes to capturing another person’s essence, you know there is an art to getting what you see with your own two eyes in real life to translating that well in photographs.
Flowers, kids, cookies, your pets, or the drops of rain on the window… they never seem to look quite as good in photographs as they do in real life, unless real care is taken to preserve the shot.
My tips and tricks for getting the best shot are:
to take time with your shot. Don’t rush if possible. Easier to do with inanimate objects, of course.
take lots and lots of pictures, more than you ever think you’d need
walk around and capture your subject from all different angles, sides, and vantage points
resist using your flash, especially with food
don’t be afraid to get creative and sometimes what seems like it will look really silly or that it would “never work”, when you upload the pictures, it’s the setting, shot, or angle that you thought was the corniest that turns out to be the coolest. This is also true in modeling. The worse, unnatural, and awkward a pose feels, that usually means the shot will turn out great!
And I am not an expert, not trying to be one, just sharing what I have learned, 25,000 pictures and two years later in my blogging career because before that, I didn’t take nearly as many pictures.
2. Do you think there are some things that are just ugly very hard to shoot and no matter how many times you shoot them, it’s just not pretty?
White foods such as bread, pasta, lasagna, noodles, sugar cookies, taco shells, all are so awesome tasting and can look wonderful in person, but white foods just don’t seem to photograph well for me.
Quesadillas (Vegan) taste great. Look meh on camera.
Beans, lentils, chili, soups, also need to be careful with them or they look like brown slop. Or you know what.
Vegan Chili tastes great, looks not so great
Vanilla Chia Seed Pudding is ugly in person and on camera!
And it’s a gray food which I think are ugly to begin with.
The Chocolate Chia Seed Pudding isn’t much better although chocolate anything is good.
And Raw Vegan Chocolate Coconut Snowballs aren’t the prettiest but you cannot go wrong on taste or simplicity of recipe with these.
5 minutes, cocoa powder, coconut, sweetener. Despite the less than pretty exterior, they taste wonderfully.Now that I have poked fun of my own food pictures, it’s your turn! What subject matter or foods do you think are difficult to photograph well?
3. Do you have any ugly food pictures on your blog?
The majority of the pictures on my site I used to think looked “good” but now I go back and cringe at all my old photos. And even some very recent ones.
I think all bloggers feel that way though!
We all have to start somewhere and it’s a journey, and evolution, and looking at the ugly ones makes me appreciate the better pictures. Growth is a beautiful thing.
*Edited to Add*
Please Go Bid on Katie’s Vegan Blog Bake Sale for Japan items. Dozens of bloggers are donating vegan baked goods and the bid proceeds go to the people of Japan.
I am donating Raw Vegan Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough Balls
That looks like a really fun/useful book! If I ever come across it, I’ll definitely flip through!
I purposely don’t worry about the photos on my blog! Part of my schtick is to be the exact opposite of professional, but more real. I care about lighting. I want colors to stand out. That’s about it! :-)
I totally agree that some foods look crappy… chia pudding, absolutely. I posted a pic of it on FB, and one of my friends commented: How does that not make you fart? ;-)
That book sounds like a winner! Thanks for sharing some of the tips. I’m always looking for ways to make my pictures nicer! :-)
I agree thanks for sharing that book! Great tips!
Wow that looks like a great book! I’m jealous :D I guess the tip that helped me the most with all kinds of photography is to see the light. I knew the basics like not taking a picture of someone standing in front of a window but it goes a little further than that. I even rotate my food around to see the light and how the food looks better because a small adjustment can look way better or way worse. That being said everything on my site is a work in progress. It’s hard not to look at other peoples photos and not feel self conscious about my own. Haha, I posted some black beans the other day. Those were really ugly, LOL. Usually things that are all one color are difficult for me. Gotta break it up with another color, but sometimes you can’t!
wow, thanks for sharing that book I think I’m definitely going to get it once I’ve gotten my site configured the way I would like it.
I love that you also shared the ugly photos lord knows I’ve taken a lot over the last few weeks while getting acquainted with food photography! :P
i am loving your food styling hobby! its fun to learn these new things :) i was also thinking how cool it is how much your blog has developed over the year and how far you’ve come! now you’re such a photography lover i love it!
i’m also kissing the ground you walk on for introducing me to chia seeds haha now i can’t living without them!!
Hahaha I love that chocolate is considered the “problem child” :)
LOL I cannot believe there is a book! But of course there would be a book; there’s a book for everything.
And girl, your balls are already up to $75!!! Expensive balls!
(Please don’t take that the naughty way lol!)
I know, i just went to your site and saw that!!! amazing! Thank you for organizing it all…I know it was a FT Job, and then some, for you :)
I have definitely photographed and blogged about ugly food. I like that though. I like real food. It’s not always picture perfect, but that’s ok with me. I am definitely a work in progress when it comes to photos…I’m learning as I go.
I have plenty of ugly photos… thats the worst when you make an amazing dish and you just cant get it to look good
totally! I have GREAT recipes that sometimes I never post about b/c the pics are sooo…meh.
I always wanted my PB to smear like that! I think orange hued foods are really hard to capture. Lately it seems my foods have been hit or miss. I’ve been trying to practice more with manual settings.
I have to admit, I don’t spend enough time on my own food pics, though great pics can sucker me into someone else’s blog. I don’t have a high-end camera, but that food styling book almost makes me wish I did. Have fun with it!
That book looks so cool and helpful. Sometimes I get good shots and sometimes it’s like an off day. All about finding the right light without shadows for me, and then styling. I stopped taking pictures of everything I eat a long time ago. I didn’t like posting boring or ugly pictures and didn’t want to spend 20 minutes on every meal just taking pictures. Then editing, uploading, viewing, etc. That book looks fun! I was hoping you were giving it away.
Averie that book looks really interesting! I would love to place the cherries in a piece of pie — how hilarious
I don’t think I have the best pictures, but I also don’t think they are too bad! I try to find as much natural light as possible, and I take 5-6 pictures of every shot, just to make sure the lighting looks right and there are no shadows (or the right amount of shadows, etc).
There are lots of foods that don’t photograph too well — oatmeal, pudding, chili, some soups, casseroles, a scoby :)