July 27, 2013

8-11pm

I did a food photoshoot as well as interior shots for a grand opening Chinese restaurant called Ke Zhang 有家客棧. It is located at Flushing, Queens.

Let ‘s starts with its quite interesting interior design. Do you know the one of the most popular Japanese Anime/Manga? Yes, One Piece. The wall in the restaurant is painted with the huge graffiti featuring One Piece characters.

I asked the owner what makes you have such an idea. She told me that her brother is a big fan of One Piece. When they first decide to paint with traditional Chinese painting. Her brother cried. Raving and ranting. He just wanted to paint with One Piece graphic. I just think it is really amazing to see such big graffiti in the restaurant.

The food they offer is authentic Chinese food. Nothing Japanese though. I photographed about 10 dishes.

I forget to take a picture of my lighting set up. Basically I used two lights. One with 33 inch umbrella at back. and one with 42 inch umbrella at left side. And I also placed a white card on the right to bounce some light back.

One key I discovered during my experience with food photoshoot is that if the food and plate are very big. It does not look very nice in the photo. It is always better if they can downsize the food to smaller plate. It will look better in the camera.

For example, this one. The plate is kind big for the composition. Look not as nice as photo above.

I also did some simple propping  These fake flower on the background, the plate mat and the napkin are all my own props I brought for the photoshoot.  I think they fit nicely with the food.  However we still need to be careful on choose the prop. Here is one photo I think I used the wrong prop. It distracts the food. Background look too busy. It is a nice looking fabric. but not good as background here.

I look forward to my next food photoshoot. I love food photography. It is one of my Favorite type of photography.