Food Photography: From Snapshots to Great Shots

Are you a “foodie” looking to take eye-catching photos of your culinary concoctions? Do you have a food blog that you’d like to enhance with better visuals? Do you want to create photos that conjure up the flavours of your favourite foods but lack the photographic technique to make it happen? Then this book is for you!

In Food Photography: From Snapshots to Great Shots, photographer Nicole Young dishes up the basics on getting the right camera equipment – lights, lenses, reflectors, etc. – and takes you through the key photographic principles of apertureAPERTUREAperture, shutter speed and ISO form what is known as the exposure triangle in photography. Aperture refers to an opening inside the lens, similar to the iris of your eye, that changes in diameter to control the amount of light that enters a camera. Aperture is expressed in f-stops: the lower the number, the larger the aperture, e.g. f/1.4 is larger than f/8. A larger (or wider) aperture allows more light to pass through the lens to the sensor (film) as a picture is taken, particularly useful in low-light conditions. A larger aperture also produces a shallower depth-of-field, and thus more background blur., ISO, and shutter speedSHUTTER SPEEDAperture, shutter speed and ISO form what is known as the exposure triangle in photography. Shutter speed is the length of time that a single frame is exposed for, more specifically how fast the shutter opens and closes to permit light entering the lens, to reach the sensor. A slow shutter speed means a longer exposure time useful for motion blur like the silky look of flowing water, whereas a fast shutter speed means a shorter exposure time useful for freezing the appearance of motion in images like a hummingbird in flight. It is measured in seconds starting at 1 second and halving our doubling in time. For example: 1/2s, 1/4s and 1/8s are all fractions of a second with 1/2s being the longest exposure time, 1/4s half of that and 1/8s another half etc.. She then discusses lighting and composition and shows how to style food using props, fabrics, and tabletops. Finally, she explains how to improve your photos through sharpening, colour enhancement, and other editing techniques. Beautifully illustrated with large, vibrant photos, this book offers the practical advice and expert shooting tips you need to get the food images you want every time you pick up your camera.