A little food photography.

One of the least enjoyable assignments I had at the Alberta College of Art and Design was photographing food.  It's not that it was particularly difficult, in fact I was very good at it.  What was difficult for me was that I was taught not to play with my food as a child and in food photography that is what you have to do.  Items are not cooked fully, they are usually blanched to bring out the colour. You use a stand in as you set up the camera angle and lighting before bringing in the "Hero" (the finally prepared dish although it is not something you eat later). We had to do three assignments over three weeks which I did very well on, but over the course of shooting I found that I had lost my appetite and did not eat very much during the time.

Needless to say I never pursued this line of work yet I did gain an appreciation for how food is styled by the finer chefs.  I'll be honest that we are not gourmets and don't go out to high end restaurants very often.  The finest eating establishment that we do go to on a somewhat regular basis is Boston Pizza.  It is a good mid-level chain and the meals are well done as far as our family is concerned.

Tonight on the way to choir I took my boy's to the BP at Chinook Centre.  When the waitress brought my Seafood Fettuccine I noticed that it was nicely styled in the presentation. Now I don't normally take photo's of my meals, but tonight felt it would make an interesting subject for my photo of the day.  Positioning my plate in a way to use the lone light over the table to give a nice even lighting I then looked at how I wanted to photograph it. I decided to bring the iPhone in close and use the muscle as my main element and the lemon slice as a background detail.  I then tilted the phone to make it a bit more dynamic.

The final touch on the photo was to bring it into Snapseed where this time I decided to do no extra post processing work other then the crop to the square format to fit Instagram and the edge frame.  I think to turned out rather well and though I don't think I will not be doing this type of work much in the future, I will watch for future opportunities when I am out at nice dining environments in the future.  I hope the photo below might make you think to try the Seafood Fettuccine at Boston Pizza sometime.