Sep 6, 2013

5-8pm

Today I did a food photoshoot for a grand opening Chinese restaurant located at west village.

It was an intensive photoshoot. Normally I need 20 mins for photography one dish including preparation time. This time I was like shooting one food for every 5 mins. I can see even the owner got stressed out. He was not supposed to smoke during the photoshoot. but he asked, I thought he must be stressed out. It might be normal for him since this might be his first time experience this intensive workflow. But honestly I did not feel anything special. I have been experience all kind of situations, so I am more mentally used to this intensity.

Lighting setup is pretty standard. This is my standard lighting setup for location food photography now. Sometimes the space is very limited, then I will only use one light with umbrella.

At first I was using a bit hard lighting. Try to give a feeling of sunshine. It works well at first.

But when I was shooting those bun with same lighting, it looks not that good. I mean it depend on your taste. One of my friend really like this look, he said it looks very contrasty. but the owner there did not like it.

So I switched to softer light. Then the owner like it.

Then the rest food were all shoot with soft light.

I believe soft light is always good. Nobody would against it. Hard light is more controversial for food photography. But sometimes I just want to try different lighting. I think it is still depend on how to use it.