Canon 7D, 1/250th sec at ƒ/5.6, ISO 100
LEFT LENS: Canon 70-200 ƒ/4L IS; RIGHT LENS: Canon 24-105 ƒ/4L IS

I photographed the two images above to demonstrate one very cool bit of knowledge about photography – lens compression. The longer your lens the more compressed, or blurry, your background will be. Both images used the exact same exposure, light, subject, etc – the only difference is that I used a different lens for each shot. A longer lens is going to create the perception that the background is actually closer to your subject, and, in this case with the lights in the background, the more zoomed-in you are to your subject the larger your background bokeh will be.

The image on the left was photographed with a Canon 70-200 f/4L IS lens, zoomed all the way out to 200mm. For the image on the right I used my 24-105 f/4L IS, zoomed all the way to 105mm. (Note that I am using a Canon 7D, which is a crop-sensor camera so the focal length is actually a little bit longer).

Canon 7D, Canon 24-105ƒ/4L IS lens, 1/15th second at ƒ/5.6, ISO 100

In food photography, and photography in general, a good fundamental tip on composition is to create or find triangles in your images. Triangles keep the viewer’s eyes on the photo, since when you follow a triangle with your eyes you are basically circling around the image, looking at all the elements. In this image the basil leaves are the boldest color, so your eyes probably were drawn to that part of the image first. If you followed your eyes to the other leaves then you were fooled into looking at the entire photo. ;)

Your triangles don’t have to all be the same colors or shapes – they could be as simple as three different elements in an image that your eyes will be easily drawn to. If you are photographing people then the direction of a person’s eyes are going to draw the viewer’s eyes in the same direction, and you could use that element in your “triangle”.

In food photography you will also find that adding this technique to your styling is very pleasing to the eye. I always add the “final touches” to the dish while it’s sitting on its mark, since I have a better view of the image through the viewfinder and can create or find the best placement for things like garnishes and silverware from that perspective.

When I photograph food I do my best to use as much natural light as possible. The images above both have natural, diffused sunlight coming in from the right with a reflector to the left, but there is a slight difference between them.

Can you see it?

In the image on the left there isn’t enough fill-light hitting the subject. The reason for this is that the reflector wasn’t pointing to the part of the image that needed light. It was angled the wrong direction – completely parallel to the window (you can see that the background is a bit lighter in that shot). I needed the light to hit the glass at an angle, so I turned the reflector so it was facing the front-left part of the glass that was in my view. (See the diagram to the right for the final setup – click on it for a larger view.)

It’s important that you not only have your reflector filling in the subject opposite the main light, but also that you make sure it’s angled in a way that it’s pleasing to your photograph. You don’t need anything fancy to use as a reflector – a large piece of foam-core will do the trick. But if you do have a traditional reflector (this is the one I use) then you are also able to bend and warp it to wrap more light around your image.

Here’s another “Two Minute Tip” on how to add a basic watermark to your images using Photoshop.

Canon 7D, Canon 24-105 ƒ/4L IS lens, 1/50th sec at ƒ/4, ISO 100

One of the most common challenges I have seen many new food photographers struggle with is getting proper white balance (colors) and also exposure (tones/brightness/contrast) in their food images. When we photograph people we usually have a skin tone to gauge what our white balance is, and since our minds naturally know what looks “right” it’s not too difficult to find the right balance. With food it’s different since the colors and tones can be whatever we make them to be, and sometimes it’s hard to get the image back to those bright, vivid colors we remembered photographing.

The image above is the photo straight out-of-the-camera (left) and edited version (right). It was photographed with window-light on the right and a large silver reflector on the left to fill in shadows. My editing on this was very simple: I corrected the white-balance in Adobe Lightroom (from the RAW file), then used a levels adjustment layer for the tones, a separate levels layer for color, and added a reduced-opacity B&W overlay layer to add some contrast (you can learn how to do that last step here).

So, how can you improve the white-balance in your images? Here are five tips to get you started:

1. Photograph in daylight-balanced light. Using the light in the kitchen, which is usually going to be tungsten or flourescent, is not your ideal light for food photography (or photography in general). Use window light or speedlights/strobes to get the correct color-temperature light and you will immediately see results.

2. Make sure your computer monitor is calibrated. There are a lot of relatively inexpensive calibration tools out there. I use a very simple “Spyder Express” – the newest one on the market (the Spyder Express 3) costs around $75. This is ideal if the majority of your work is displayed online or in a computer format.

3. Pre-set the white-balance in your camera. This can be done with a fancy tool like the Expodisc ($100) or with an inexpensive $5-10 gray card (you can also find them at your local camera store).

4. Shoot in RAW format. This will ensure that you can change your white balance in your editing software if you didn’t get it perfect out-of-camera (and 99% of the time you probably won’t).

5. Compare your before/after image. By comparing your original image to the edited version you will have a better idea of what edits are working and what still needs to be done. You can do this pretty easily by toggling your layer visibility in Photoshop … I have a short two-minute video on this topic on my blog here.

Here’s a “Two Minute Tip” on how to quickly toggle your layer visibility in Photoshop.

Click here to view this video on YouTube.

Canon 7D, Canon 24-105 ƒ/4L IS lens, 1/60th sec at ƒ/4, ISO 400

No … don’t look away from my blog. :) I’m talking Photoshop here. Have you ever stared at a word for a really long time, and then realized how funny it looks and that it might be spelled wrong when there’s nothing wrong with it? Well, the same thing can happen in Photoshop.

I do a LOT of image editing, and because I sell my images as stock then I find myself cloning out a bunch of blemishes and logos. Sometimes when I do a bit of cloning I think “Wow, that is so obvious that it’s been cloned”, or I think the opposite and don’t realize how horrible it looks. But if I turn my head for a few seconds and take a second look at the cloned image I have a fresh perspective and can see the image more clearly and have a better chance of noticing obvious, or not-so-obvious, cloned areas.

This also applies when you are doing color and tonal adjustments. We can get absorbed in the look of the image and not realize that we’ve over-done some aspect of our adjustments. It’s a good idea to look away from your computer every once in a while during the editing process to see it with fresh eyes.

Nikon D200, Lensbaby Composer, Double Glass Optic/Star Aperture, 15 sec exposure, ISO 100

If you use a Lensbaby and have the “Creative Aperture” set then you might find this technique fun, especially during the holidays when there is a plethora of lights all around. The photo above was not manipulated in Photoshop (other than basic color/tone adjustments) – it’s a long exposure photographed with a Lensbaby. Heres’s how to achieve a similar effect:

- You will need an SLR camera, Lensbaby*, and the Creative Aperture Kit
- Find a scene that has a lot of lights and requires a long-exposure (several seconds)
- With your Lensbaby, use a creative aperture, such as the heart or star (or make your own!)
- Once you have your focusing and proper exposure time set on your image, start your exposure and about half-way to two-thirds through the exposure defocus your lens. You might need to try defocusing at different times to get a good overall look to the image (it does require some trial-and-error).

The end result should give you a normal scene with large bokeh shapes where the lights are from whatever shaped aperture you had in your lens.

*It might be possible to create the same effect by using a non-Lensbaby lens and a DIY bokeh shape. I’ve never tried it before, but theoretically it should work the same way. (If you want to give it a shot with a DIY, please let me know how it turns out!)

One of my rules when I’m taking photos is that I do my best to move around a LOT while I’m photographing a subject. What I mean by this is that I’m standing, kneeling, and even stepping on nearby stairs (or chairs) to find different views and angles for my images. There’s nothing wrong with standing upright and taking photos (or putting the camera on a tripod at eye-level) but I do my best to approach my subjects from as many different perspectives as is possible during a shoot.

The photo above is a perfect example of the difference between photographing from a standing position (top image) and photographing from a kneeling position (bottom image). Just a few feet of movement can really make a big change in what your image looks like.

So … the next time you take a photo try and remember to kneel, sit down, lay on your belly, or even get up above the subject – do whatever it takes to get the same shot from a different angle. Do it often and it will eventually become second nature.

If you have a photo that you took with a unique perspective and would like to share it, please feel free to link to it in the comments below!