photographing food

[Rick Meyer]

I have a whole new respect for food photogs. I just spent the past half hour trying to get a quick and dirty shot of the ice cold beer I was about to drink just to make everybody jealous and desiring of it. Wanted to post the Friday Night pic here....

By the time my beer was still cold but not icy, I decided to call it quits. I got nothin....

 

[Capt Quirk]

Nothing but a cold beer. So... what's the problem?

 

[sink]

My mom paid a "professional food photog" 800 bucks for a half day and she gave her terrible un-usable pictures... so I took these.... for free!

 

[Terry_Lasater]

I have a whole new respect for food photogs. I just spent the past half hour trying to get a quick and dirty shot of the ice cold beer I was about to drink just to make everybody jealous and desiring of it. Wanted to post the Friday Night pic here....

By the time my beer was still cold but not icy, I decided to call it quits. I got nothin....

I was a photo assistant for 5 years for a photographer who specialized in food and architectural photography. We mostly shot transparencies with his Sinar 4x5 view camera - occasionally doing some 8x10.

If you wanna give the beer idea another go, here's a few things to try:
- Get some Arrid Extra Dry anti-perspirant in a can (accept no substitutes) and spray the glass or mug lightly to create a frosty look.

- Get some good back light going through the mug. Also, you can take some light tracing paper and cut out a shape that is slightly smaller than the liquid outline in the glass and carefully place it on the backside of the glass - you can use a tiny piece of scotch tape to hold it in place. This will give your beer a diffused soft backlight that really allows the color of the beer to come through because of the contrast of a clean white piece of paper.

- Use a large diffused light (Chimera) to key with and some carefully placed pieces of foam core just out of camera frame to fill any undesired shadows or paint highlights on the surface of the glass.


- Get a small spray bottle with glycerin (or water) and give a light mist to lend authenticity to the perspiring glass.


- Just before you take the shot, sprinkle a bit of salt in the beer to add instant foam.

Cheers! :beer:

 

[Rick Meyer]

Nothing but a cold beer. So... what's the problem?

Well, because I wanted to keep it simple. I had a frosted pint glass in the freezer. So, I set up a makeshift area on my kitchen table to surround the beer with one color. I chose black. Not really the best choice.

And, admittedly, I was too lazy to drag out the tripod and remote shutter release button and my MATTINSTL light....I just wanted to do this quick and dirty, make it look cold and refreshing so I could post it here just to get people to say, "damn I want one".....but, after about 10-15 minutes not one shot looked delicious.

I paid the price for being too lazy. I could have spent 5 minutes setting up my tripod and such to get crystal clear shots instead of 15-20 minutes holding my breath, upping the shutter speed and doing it handheld.

And Terry-

I LOVE your advice. I am copy and pasting that for the future. I love those tricks. Had I known about them last night though, I still would have been too lazy. Hell, I just wanted to get people jealous of my beer.

It tasted good going down though!

Rick