Food Photography General

File: mcdonalds_bigmac.jpg (768KB, 2250x3000px) Image search: [Google]

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I'm fascinated by commercial food photography.
It's crazy how much goes into making the food look perfect.
For a burger, lettuce will be stapled in place, syringes will be used to position the sauce, etc. Every ingredient is hand selected for the picture. Usually there will be a chef on site to keep prepping more food.

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>>3137529
Was this shot with a drone? Nice shot

>>3137570
All correct, and if that burger is made correctly (according to procedure) it will look nothing like the pic. Most cooked ingredients aren't really cooked, just hit with a propane torch until they look pretty. That goes for things like turkey as well. I've been told that cereal shots don't use milk either, it's usually white glue, perhaps thinned just a bit. Truly nothing is as it seems.

>>3137529
I know nothing about food photography but a lot of the time people's food shots make the food look really oily/greasy. Yours as well.

>>3137583
The biggest problem with fastfood burgers "in the wild" is the paper boxes they place them in.
This makes them soggy.

If you were to photograph a genuine hamburger before it went into the box, or if they simply left the box open, and you re-arranged it a bit to show all the ingredients it wouldn't look that terrible at all.

File: BeansBeefKaleOnions.jpg (2MB, 2455x1634px) Image search: [Google]

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>>3137573
Just overhead in hand, my lunch from 2 nights ago. Cheers.

>>3137570
I hear people quote this a lot because there were examples of it in the 70s but in my (albeit very limited) experience in the area I've found you can do exactly the same thing on a budget of zero. Toothpicks and a spray bottle of water are enough for 95% of stuff and everything else can be done in post-proc. I think it's just that it used to be harder in post-processing so big companies spent more on the photographers to make it look nice.

>>3137685
That's because it's both oily and greasy because it tastes better. Correct use of oil is something far too people do well.
Granted though, most of my shots are far too greasy and complicated and I've learned that less ingredients and less or thicker isolated sauce = better

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File: fishcakess.jpg (1MB, 1400x1243px) Image search: [Google]

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Couple things I've learned from the few pics I've posted (specific to instagram though, which is gay central even if I only post there):

>Diffused natural light wins every time, which can be a real bitch if you like to shoot when you eat
>Fruit and desserts are cheat mode for more likes and engagement.
>80% of your audience will be fat women on diets
>For meals, always add a red food, a yellow/orange food and a green food. Red foods that don't go bad quickly are now a staple in my cupboard- pickled beetroot, frozen red pepper, red onion, red cabbage, etc
>Anything you can do to help the viewer imagine eating the food works well- add a fork with spaghetti wrapped around next to the plate or have the sauce dripping down the side of the meat or the ice cream dripping down the cone, etc
>Bumping up the highlights, shadows, whites and darks, the blues on the plate (to make it look more crisp and clean) and reducing the contrast is my go-to.

Overall, I just snap when I eat and spend maybe 60 seconds shooting. I spend less than 5 minutes processing and usually do it in batches of a week so less than 60 seconds per meal.

That said, I don't think I'm any good so it's probably worth spending more time being anal.

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>>3138112
>>3137720
>>3137529
Those picture suck

File: p-food1.jpg (198KB, 1000x662px) Image search: [Google]

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that chopping board ruins the shots. you want wood/fabric textures.
this is gold:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6AeNvLM3nfc
but setup wise yeah one big diffused (natural) light source, reflector on the other side and some flags to stop spill and reflections
burgers are the worst.

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>>3138132
You have demonstrated your lack of education and experience.
Please kys so we don't have to deal with such a low effort user

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>>3138137
Agreed, I would also prefer white plates and textured wood. I'm just too cheap to spend any money on what is essentially a 30 minute a week hobby
I think traditional food photography is far more skillful and focuses on setting and mood whereas Instagram seems to be dominated by diet and product focused stuff so it's more about clean cut sharp images and soft light.

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>>3138154
Gimme focus on the soup, not the spoon