Beyond Daylight
The most successful food shots are always the ones with great lighting as most powerful element.
In a recent survey of food photographers from all over the world about what kind of light they would choose to shoot with over 90% said artificial light
Food is one of the easiest subjects to take a bad picture . Just watch as people take out their phones the next time you’re at a restaurant and you’ll know why . They will find that the light in the restaurant is all wrong, its to uneven or to hard, the colour all wrong ,and when you move the food or plate its even worse !
There are thousands of food photography courses and they all teach one thing- How to Photograph Food using daylight. However putting up a reflector or two is not going to help you shoot for real food clients on real jobs.
Daylight is beautiful , it’s useful because it’s always there. It’s found everywhere so you don’t have to bring pesky lights with you - but it has it’s limits.
Daylight is 100% dependent on where you are shooting, the season and even time of day determine the light you will get to work with.
Daylight can bring two much contrast for food or in some cases offer only flat and lifeless light. Daylight is so inconsistent in its colour as the colour temperature changes from season to season and during the day. You can not control the angle that daylight enters your studio and as a photographer you don’t want to have to change the angle of your set every few hours as the daylight moves around your building. Photographing with Daylight outdoors is a disaster for food because you get no real direction to the light - it’s all over and makes for poor pictures.
light in the natural environment can be controlled by not to the same level as artificial lights in the studio.
I have a Masters in Photography and I have lectured students on a Degree in Photography and the time given over to this topic of lighting is usually limited , mostly in my opinion because people don’t know how enough about lighting. Despite the emergence of digital photography the one that hasn’t changed is the need for something to look good using lighting. That will never change .
I use Flash, Hard Lighting , Soft Lights, Tungsten, Theatre lights, LED and and HMI .
It all depends on what I’m trying to achieve.
The Photographers who do something different gain higher visibility for their work .
If you want to be a professional Photographer or create looking professional results , you will want to control everything about picture making.
Using your own lights means you decide on the lighting effects you want .
Using your own lighting means your results are repeatable every time.
Using your own lighting means consistent results from shot to shot.
Using your own lighting means you can be more confident in any situation
Controlling light is probably the most important skill you will need.
The lighting is not something you can change later in photoshop or retouching , it’s something you do at the time of making the image .
Retouchers will tell you that getting the lighting right especially when combining images is the most important thing they want from us photographers . Those first decisions you make when lighting something determine most of how the pictures will turn out for better or worse .
Lighting is my favourite part of photography. If you can master light then you can take your photography to another level and you will be more in demand as a photographer.
LIGHTING IS SOMETHING TO MARVEL AT IN THE REAL WORLD , TO SEE HOW THE LIGHT ENTERS A ROOM , UNDER A DOOR, THE QUALITY OF LIGHT IN DIFFERENT COUNTRIES, THE VIBRANCY, COLOUR , MOOD, EMOTION.
Lighting creates it all..
Light is something to control absolutely, but also to experiment with , to become more creative with.
