Some food pictures

[snousle]

These photos were taken using the new lighting setup. This begins the "shortlist" of photos that will be used for the web page. This also represents the limits of my abilities so far, both in presentation and actual photography. Photographic suggestions would be welcome, since I have a sense that these could be further improved, but other than some focus issues I'm not sure exactly what's wrong. (I don't know about the wide-aperture approach, it's starting to annoy me more than please me, but I see it in magazines all the time.)



Uncooked squash agnolotti:



...with some beurre blanc, caramelized shallots, and parsley. This, or something like it, is going to be one of my standards, since it's popular, vegetarian, and not very difficult to make.



I'm unsure whether this faux-grungy-antique plate is going to work. It's from a set my mother gave me a few years back. Would you want to eat off of that?

Another presentation:



Some pork and zucchini with said agnolotti. This particular arrangement is not actually something I would serve, but it illustrates some difficulties I'm having with color. Things in the red range look indistinct and washed out, while the zucchini is so dark as to lose all detail.



A presentation I'm thinking of for a "tapas party" where many small plates are served and shared:

Comments

[snousle.livejournal.com]

I think the patterned plates are screwing with your white balance and metering

That is a very good possibility. Since the light I use doesn't match the preset white balances very well I have been using "auto". However it does have a calibration mode, I just have to figure out how to use it.

The lubricated knife idea is a good one. These are the things you miss not going to cooking school...

[growler-south.livejournal.com]

Lubricated knife food not for eating! Years of going to advertising hell job, not cookery there- making candy bar breakaways look delicious and perfect. Usually when the client didn't have the cash for a proper 3D model.

Auto white balance will fuck you up- and not in a good way! Calibration/manual mode- you usually fill the lens with a plain white item and activate calibration/manual mode, and the camera then adjusts until it's capturing white. If you calibrate/manual while looking at a coloured field, the camera will attempt to adjust until that field is captured as white- which will mess with rendering of other colours later.

Of the preset white balance modes, I used to find 'cloudy day' the best when using a combination of natural and artificial light. It knocked out the cold blue in the daylight, while not making the shadows *too* yellow.

Good luck handsome!