Basic Food Setup

Softboxes for the win!

Good quality food shots take a real attention to detail but the basic set-up is deceptively simple. You need a large soft light source and a smaller soft light source for fill, but otherwise you need complete darkness. The props you typically use in food are glazed - porcelain, china, metals will all reflect the light sources and so you have to control the shape and size of them completely.

So, start with a dark room - or be prepared to use a high sync speed to remove the ambient light. Then you need a large softbox and a fill. You could get away with one light source and use a white card for the fill but obviously a second controllable fill softbox is better.

Here's the setup I use for a simple food shot. The large softbox points towards the camera from the rear (three-quarter), it's about 36" x 24" I think and I can set it horizontally or vertically. I tend to hover it over the table so that you get a good deal of light towards the front of the set. The light source is my SB800 Speedlight triggered by the Nikon wireless CLS system on my D300. The front softbox is much smaller, about 18" X 12", I think, containing my SB600 Speedlight set-up directly opposite the large softbox. The table is laid out lengthways away from the camera so that the background recedes with no hard horizon.

If you're observant you'll note that the window in the background shows a very blue light. That's because the Speedlights are gelled with a 1/4 CT each and the camera white balance is set to Incandescent. Any daylight from the window will be blue but I was shooting into the evening so it soon diminished. That choice of white balance makes any extraneous light from the room lighting less distracting since the room lights are tungsten/halogen. This is my dining room, after all! The only other lighting control I use is black flags (A4 cards) to reflect blackness to help define the edges of the white china, and white reflector cards to help fill where the light doesn't quite hit. Then it's a question of trial and error to balance the Speedlights and flags and reflectors.

A question of flooring

So having dealt with the lighting, now on to the subject of the picture. I like to think from the bottom up on this. First the floor, or base, of the shot. Depending on the tone you want to set, you can use anything you can lay your hands on, from a crisp white tablecloth, to a rough piece of timber. Just look at food magazines for inspiration. A matte surface is probably best for first time as reflections are very difficult to manage. In these test shots I'm using a white tablecloth that needs ironing!

Then you need a plate or bowl that complements the food. Here I'm using the best white china for the test shots but remember that the glossier the finish the more important your choice of lighting as it will be reflected in it. Finally you are into the realm of props - cutlery, a napkin for colour or interest, and a supporting prop in the background to help the eye settle in the frame. Here you are on your own, especially cutlery as it reflects everything and shows every last fingerprint. Attention to detail is everything, which is why this test shot looks awful - everything needs ironing!

You'll note I haven't even started on the food yet...which sums up food photography. In the test shots there are two cherry tomatoes and that's all, it just gets harder the more you add to the plate.

Pub practice

Now for some real-life examples from the food shoot I did at the Red Lyon in Hurley. The head chef, Simon Pitney-Baxter, gave the brief that the style should be relaxed country pub whilst implying high quality ingredients and modern cuisine. So we started hunting the pub for the perfect floor for the pictures, and found a well worn table that was clean and not too shiny. From there the plates and props followed. The background props are there to complement the food, so salt and pepper grinders, a jug of gravy, and a cup of coffee all work with the dishes.

The technical details that remain are the lighting set-up that I'd practiced at home and a 60mm 2.8 Nikkor lens on the D300, tethered to Lightroom on a laptop on a stand. Then lots of bracketing of aperture for depth of field, and fiddling with reflectors and flags. After four hours I did get to eat the dessert and can recommend a visit to the Red Lyon as a result!