Lighting for shooting food

I do food photography for a living, and while there's a slight amount of taste to lighting food, we generally have a style called New Nordic here in Denmark.
I like the idea of it as it's based around one light source, often just a powerful light bounced combined with daylight.
In my case I bounce my lamp on the wall that has the window through which my daylight comes.
Most of the time I have my light coming from behind and slightly to the right, and then softened from the opposite direction. For a while I just used a bounce card, now I'm back to using a 2nd soft light going through a diffuser.
Another setup would be to turn the main light and make it a direct hard light, and place a diffuser between it and the food.
Dial up the daylight so it's not dominating but just help lift the entire shot and then use the direct light to pick up the textures in the product by lowering it on the stand.

Here's a shot I did last week:

food.jpg
 
Last edited:
When I did food shots, I did everything the simple way, with great results. All I brought with me besides my Hasselblad and Ektachrome was a tripod, a single powerful halogen 500 watt and a few filters including a Zeiss Softar 1 and a polarizing filter. The polarizing filter was what made all the shots come alive. The colors were well saturated, the reflection on the plate(s) were controlled, the food looked enticing and irresistable. Same can be done on digital. Keep it simple.
 
Lightly saute with an overhead softbox at 3200K for 15 minutes, then delicately season with a 150 rim to suit your tastes... :happy:
 
Ice cream is difficult to shoot under hot lights. Scoops of lard died with food colouring are subtsituted. Mmmm!!! That's one food item you don't want to savour after shoot.
 
We use the old "whipped potatoes as a stand in while lighting" trick. The real thing is switched in for the hero melt.
You really only get a few seconds of the perfect melt as the ice crystals create the "creamy" look.
A pro food stylist can hit it with a shot of refrigerant (don't know if this is allowed in some areas) to get another take out of the setup.
Just curious: do you you use the lard as a stand in or in the hero shots?
Ken
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top