Nicolesy » Food

Behind the Scenes: Fruit in a Blender

Nicole — Thu, 19 Jan 2012 20:01:06 +0000

Final image (on right): Canon 5DMkII, Canon 70-200mm f/4L IS lens, 1/8 sec at f/8, ISO 100

I recently photographed a blender filled with fruit for my stock portfolio, and the setup was unique to my usual food photographs so I thought I’d share it here on my blog. I almost always use diffused daylight for my food images (with a few exceptions) so I wanted to go with that and, even though this was a setup that would have worked just as well with strobes, I thought I’d give it a try with window-light to see what I could come up with.

When you photograph glass, or any reflective surface, you need to watch out for stray reflections. If you’re in a room with colored walls and the walls are showing in your surface then you’ll see that color in your image, just as I did with the gold-colored stripe at the bottom of the image, which is a combination reflection of the wooden surface and gold reflector I used for fill. You also want to try to add light to the sides of the glass to outline it so it doesn’t “disappear” into the background, especially if you don’t have anything inside of the glass when you photograph it.

I also wanted a backdrop that was simple, and neutral, so I added a piece of white foam board at an angle directly behind the blender. My focal length was long (180mm) so that at ƒ/8 the DOF was shallow enough so that any imperfection in the board blurred away, and it add a nice gradient to the background as well (I didn’t add any vignette to the final image since it would have introduced banding in the corners).

Here are all of the elements to my setup:

Camera: Canon 5DMkII
Lens: Canon 70-200mm ƒ/4L IS
Tripod and head with Custom Bracket
Lighting: Back-lit with diffused window light (North-facing)
Four pieces white foam board
Small gold reflector for fill light in the front

Food Photography Book Giveaway

Nicole — Sun, 21 Aug 2011 18:39:24 +0000

In celebration of my book being released and on the shelves, I’m going to be giving away four copies!

Here’s what you need to know to enter (with more specific rules below):

Create a food photograph that follows the theme “Sweet” between now and the cut-off date/time of the contest, and then post a link with a story/description about the photo in the comments below. It’s not a “photo” contest, but more of a story-telling contest … but you do need to create a photo in order to have a valid entry. I’ll be selecting one random winner here, and one random winner over on a similar contest on Google+, and then will choose two more winners (my favorite photos/stories) from each site. You can enter both contests on both sites, but can only enter once per site (blog & Google+). Image quality is not as important as creativity, so be sure to keep that in mind. :)

Also, if you don’t yet have a Google+ account, now’s a good time to start! I have some invites to give away (click here) if you need one.

Here are the rules:

The theme for the giveaway on this blog is “Sweet”.
The photo needs to be new … in other words, it needs to be photographed and uploaded any time between the date/time of this blog post and the cut-off time (listed below).
Only one entry on each site per person is allowed. (Click here to access the contest on Google+)
Upload the image to the photo hosting site of your choice (Flickr, G+, your blog, etc.). Then, post a link to your photo along with a description/story about the photograph in the comments below.
Two books will be given away randomly (one here, one on G+), and two additional books will be given away which I will personally select (one here, one on G+). For the winners I select, creativity is key … image quality is not nearly as important as the story behind the food.
The cut-off time for posting your entry for this giveaway is Saturday, September 3rd at 11:59 PM MST.

Good luck!

BTW, the giveaway is open to anyone from any country. :)

The Last Supper

Nicole — Mon, 15 Aug 2011 22:56:47 +0000

Canon 5D Mark II , Canon 70-200mm f/4L IS lens, 1/10 sec at f/8, ISO 100

As some of you may already know, I’m moving to Seattle next month. It’s been crazy … I have a ton of work piled up that I need to do and my brain is cooked (no pun intended). :) I handle change pretty well, but one thing that is really, really difficult is that “when to pack what” moment. I had one of those “oh crap” moments this weekend.

I love food. I love cooking it, photographing it and, of course, eating it. Now, I don’t always eat amazing meals every day. Being single, and living alone, most of the time I go pretty simple with my food, but when I do cook I usually get pretty fancy. So on Saturday I decided that I was going to cook up a hearty meal … steak, topped with blue cheese and some sweet caramelized onions, and a side of steamed asparagus finished in a hot pan of bacon bits and grease. I was also packing, and had run into a dilemma … I really didn’t want to pack up any of my food photography gear, cause that would mean I had to wait a month before I could shoot anything else. So, so tragic.

My solution was to photograph my steak and go out with a solid “bang”. I hadn’t cooked it yet, but decided to have an early dinner so I would have enough light to work with (here’s a link to the “behind-the-scenes” photo for this shoot). So what you see in the photo above is a fully-edible dinner, “styled” only so that it was plated nicely. Overall I’m really pleased with how the photo turned out, and photographing this “last supper”, so to speak, made me feel a little bit more comfortable packing up my food photography and styling tools.

My Food Photography Book is Shipping!

Nicole — Thu, 11 Aug 2011 17:35:57 +0000

Hey everyone, just thought I’d pass along the final book announcement that it’s shipping! I’m really excited about this book, it was a lot of hard work (and at times extremely delicious) and also a lot of fun to put together. I made this book for those of you who really want to step up their skills with food photography … I hope you enjoy it!

Also, in case you missed it I put together a video about the book (here’s the link) and if you would like to purchase it, the book is currently available on Peachpit and Amazon. :)

Food Photography: From Snapshots to Great Shots

Nicole — Thu, 04 Aug 2011 17:31:44 +0000

My new book, “Food Photography: From Snapshots to Great Shots“, is just days away from being on the shelf of your local bookstore! I thought I’d share a short promo video I put together that shares a little bit about the book. Enjoy!

Also, stay tuned to the blog … I’ll be doing book giveaways both here and on Google+, so you’ll all have a chance to get yourself a free copy. And, if you’re not on Google+ yet, feel free to send me a message and I’ll get an invite sent your way.