Food Photos

[Rhoads238]

Hey all,

Heres a few shots from yesterday's food shoot.

1.Gulin fried quail with lemongrass and mandarin pancake


2.Squid, prawn and sea bass with okra and wild ginger flower


CC and I will post more,


-Jason

[Shadowman]

Don't wait for CaC just post more, I'm already planning lunch. Nice image, the shadow areas could use more adjustment.

[Rhoads238]

Hey John,

Thanks for your response. I'll do some more work on those shadows. They can be a handful in food photos.

3.Crispy noodle with braised main lobster


4.Cantonese Braised seafood and tofu with edamame


5.Wok-frie sea prawn with lotus root


Again cc and I will post more,

Jason

[JPS]

Hi Jason,
A very nice set of pictures here, well done.
I'm looking to follow in your footsteps and take some food related pictures, so am very interested in what you are producing here.
Thanks for sharing.

[Rhoads238]

John thank you, its a work in progress. Lots of things to learn. it amazes me how a small adjustment in the lighting can yield a shot useless. That makes it very challenging for me anyway. Its also challenging because food loses quality quickly. These things make it a very exciting subject to shoot. I'm a beginner at it and strobe lighting in general but I'm looking forward to doing more of it, hopefully soon.

6.Heres another composition of one already shown


7.Sweet chili maine lobster


8.Stir-fried duck with dried mandarin peel

The shiny glaze on this one is a good example of the highlight problem i mentioned. I did what i could to clone some of them out.

[Shadowman]

Very nice, I like the angles you used to capture varying patterns or shapes of the food and also the use of background reflected light in "sweet chilled Maine..." and "Cantonese Braised...", gives it an illusion of steam.

[Rhoads238]

thanks john, The reflected background light was accidental. I removed them in final pp. These plates were very sloppy. I heard that "the new guy" was plating them. I cant imagine why the chef himself wouldn't want to do the platings. I had a ton of cloning work to do with these, cleaning up all kinds of errors. Im glad to hear no complaints about botched cloning or processing. These all had alot of work done. The piece of duck on the bottom left had no sauce on it. It looked awful. anyway.

What would you recommend i do with those shadows?

-Jason

[Mike Buckley]

The second version of the squid, prawn and sea bass is by far the best for me. Consider cropping at the top just a tiny bit above where the bowl and its top meet on the left; you don't need the entire top to be displayed and when it is, there is too much background that takes the eye away from the food.

You mentioned the problem with glare in the last one. Did you use a polarizer to help eliminate at least some of the glare?

It would be helpful if you would number each image to make it easy to identify the one being discussed.

[Rhoads238]

Mike, thanks. I'll look into making the crop you suggested. I also have added numbers to all the photos to make it easier to comment. I honestly didn't even think of using a polarizer, I will have to try it in the future. That would probably save me a lot of time in cleaning up reflections.

[Mike Buckley]

The polarizer will help only with glare, not reflections.

[Brownbear]

gorgeous photos.. like art

[Shadowman]

thanks john, The reflected background light was accidental. I removed them in final pp. These plates were very sloppy. I heard that "the new guy" was plating them. I cant imagine why the chef himself wouldn't want to do the platings. I had a ton of cloning work to do with these, cleaning up all kinds of errors. Im glad to hear no complaints about botched cloning or processing. These all had alot of work done. The piece of duck on the bottom left had no sauce on it. It looked awful. anyway.

What would you recommend i do with those shadows?

-Jason

Jason,

This might be of use. I am sure you are already familiar with the process.

http://www.adobe.com/designcenter-ar..._hishadow.html

[Rhoads238]

John thanks, I didn't know about the cliping warning. Do you know if cs6 has it or is it a feature in lightroom only? I could probably go back to the raw file on the squid and retouch the shadows in the front of the plate.

Mike, right. thats too bad. Sometimes the plate will reflect the food in an undesirable way.

Christina, thanks.

[Shadowman]

John thanks, I didn't know about the cliping warning. Do you know if cs6 has it or is it a feature in lightroom only? I could probably go back to the raw file on the squid and retouch the shadows in the front of the plate.

Mike, right. thats too bad. Sometimes the plate will reflect the food in an undesirable way.

Christina, thanks.

cs6 should have it, usually on the camera raw conversion interface and it can be used again in the post processing steps later.

[Rhoads238]

Ah yes it's in the raw processing histogram. Thanks, a helpful tip.