Food, Glorious Food

I had an aunty Gloria, I miss her terribly. When I was a nipper, we used to sing 'Food, Gloria's Food' and whenever I'm photographing food I think of the song and her.

Anyhoo, I love photographing food. For one, it doesn't have any expectations (Can you imagine a pomegranate exclaiming: 'I don't want my double chin to show'?) and for two it can be so ruddy pretty.

Food takes styling though and it's something I'm learning to do slowly but surely.

These photos were all done for issue 2 of Edible and believe it or not, I just used bounce flash in my humble living room. My living room was quite dark and it needed something to lift the shots - a white ceiling was a great help here.

Use a tripod for food photography, you have no excuse not to and you'll be pleased you did. A point of focus on food should always be tack sharp.

Which brings me on to my next point. Let's face it - unless you have some clever lighting, food looks boring when a narrow aperture (deep depth of field) is used. When photographing food set-ups I always shoot wide open. I usually use my trusty 135mm f2 but I have also achieved some amazing results with the less costly 85mm f1.8. Try not to get too much out of focus though.

I needed to create something festive that didn't look too obviously Christmassy. I took advantage of a bit of bokeh in some of these shots by placing some small battery operated fairy lights in the background. Play around with food - sift some icing sugar over things, add sparkly stars, find some beautifully rich coloured material to place your food on but most of all just have some fun with it - the food ain't going anywhere, you haven't got any time restrictions and you get to eat it after!