Everybody’s a food photographer . . . NOT!
Thursday, July 10th, 2014
Like a lot of other people, I go to Facebook, Flickr, Twitter, and other social sites, and I see lots of images of food. Contacts and colleagues, as well as anonymous strangers, have decided to show what they are about to eat, or have partially eaten. The explosion of cell phone cameras and other low-cost digital cameras has allowed many people to think of themselves as “Food Photographers.” Anyone today with a heartbeat can take a picture. I look at some of the food photography online, and there are comments from others on this, like: “That looks so yummy, I wish I could have some!” Or, “That looks delicious!” I look at the images and it is all I can do to keep my last meal down. What I usually see is not well composed, never styled, improperly lit, and the colors are sickly. This is akin to those blurry, out of focus images some people take of their kids and post on Facebook, to the delight of their friends and grandparents who say “Great shot!” The one thing they all have in common was that all the images were created for free, once you factor out the cost of the phone or camera, memory cards, readers, computers, and editing software. As I create food photography professionally, I have decided to see if I could take decent images of food with my cell phone and run it through Photoshop to get decent looking food shots. Now, real commercial food photography takes planning, a good food stylist, lots of lighting and equipment, and photographic experience. It also takes a tremendous amount of patience. I have dealt with clients, corporate chefs, tight spaces, and less than ideal shooting conditions. Sometimes the food looks great but is actually inedible because things are done to it for the purpose of great photography. I went out to a favorite Mexican restaurant for dinner the other night and, as usual, I brought along my iPhone, which actually has a decent camera built-in (for what it is). It takes 8 megapixel images in .jpg form. It performs reasonably well in relatively low lighting conditions. It has a strobe. But, first, it doesn’t shoot in RAW format. This is important for making better final images. More megapixels means more information and higher enlargement quality. Not all megapixels are equal. There are many cell phones that have larger pixel counts than the iPhone, but the picture quality isn’t as high, as evidenced by the fact that several stock agencies will accept still images and video from iPhones, but not other cell phones. Image noise becomes a factor when jamming high pixel counts on small sensors. For this reason, a cell phone isn’t what a pro would use. If you are going to shoot food, in my opinion, a 24mm X 16mm sensor in a DSLR at 10 megapixels that shoots in RAW format would be the minimum to use. So, despite my opinion, I decided to experiment as a pro since I have indeed been paid to photograph food by people in the food biz. I decided to work with the chips and salsa. The first obstacle is lighting. In this example, we are away from the outside windows and close to an inside wall. I am shooting hand-held. So it has to be either the ambient room lighting or the camera flash. Trying the flash, I get the following image: 
Although it looks sharp as a small image, there is unacceptable camera movement evident in the full-sized version. Harsh shadow at the top of the paper. Loss of light away from the center, and all the color is off. No styling is evident. This was just the way the food was delivered. Yet I see images on FB worse than this with someone saying “yummy” in the comments. I then try the somewhat same shot using room lighting, without the strobe. See the sample image below: 
While in-focus and more appealing color is evident and lighting is more even, the shadows are still way too heavy, caused by non-diffused room lighting. The position of the camera is dictated by my seating. I can’t get far enough back to get the chips and salsa in the frame. The tip of my silverware can be seen at the bottom of the image. Remember that I am shooting as most people do who post images online, not as a pro. There will be no styling. Next, I take the image and put it through a little Photoshop massage. It comes out looking like this: 
With shadows lightened, color enhanced, top of the image straightened, and the silverware tip removed, it looks better – but still nowhere near professional quality. Maybe worthy of FB, but not for marketing. I will show you a styled, professional image we did a while back of two taco salads, chips, and the rest of the fixings: 
As you can see, the color is quite appealing, the image is light and colorful, and the food is crisp and fresh-looking. Shadows are attractive and unobtrusive. The image has been styled by a professional stylist, and a lot of diffused strobe light has been used. Lighting is off-camera to give highlights where needed and provide depth. This is professional food photography – the kind supplied by We Shoot.
– Gary Silverstein
