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REAL PHOTOS, REAL FOOD, REAL PEOPLE !

Before and After pictures!

I’ve been doing food photography for The Caravela Portuguese restaurant www.thecaravela.com for quite a few years now.

They have a wide variety on the menu but is mainly geared towards Portuguese dishes.

Despite the Portuguese flavor, when comes to food photography the owner has a “Japanese policy” approach; and in Japan by law you are required to take photos only of the real food, and that is not easy to achieve at all.

Food on camera by default looks flat, unappetizing, etc. and that will be the reason why you won’t see on the “Menu” cellphone pictures taken by regular customers, well at the end of the day a restaurant is “socializing” in the traditional way of the word as opposed to the trendy “social networks”.

Along the years I did my fair share of tricks:

I filled rolls with wet Tampax microwaved, so they are “still steamy” and they look like “out of the oven”. I colored mashed potatoes and put it in cones since ice-cream was melting way to fast, I used white glue instead of milk so the cereals do not get so soggy, I painted almost uncooked chickens and steak’s with shoe polish, hair spray works wonders on fruits or anything with a “skin”, and for “cream on top “always worked best to have with me some shaving cream…..list is way too long to be mentioned here.

What gear/skill you need to photograph real food, when the restaurant owner gives you max 5 minutes a dish and limited space:

-Use as much as natural light as possible.

-Travel light to location, one camera body and 2 lens in a backpack should suffice.

-2-3 Flashes with bouncers and few stands with umbrellas should do the trick.

-Nope lightboxes wont work they are way too bulky for small spaces.

-Never use the on camera flash.

-Have several wireless transmitters, do not use wires.

-Have with you few reflectors silver/gold/white , bounce cards and few flags.

-You will work faster and be flexible with zoom lens, as opposed to primes.

-Remember the bigger the source the softer the light

-Remember food is 2 dimensional in a photo, you must add the third “layer”.

-If you do not have a food stylist on set pay attention to detail.

-Consider that you are a painter with a blank canvas and you start building with that light and shapes.

-Enjoy.

02/02/2019

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