I say this because photography is subject (like almost everything else in our fast moving world) to trends, currents and moods. Just think of the food photographs you saw in magazines 10 or 20 years ago. The trend back then was very different. Most pictures were shot from above with very complicated settings and props. The food itself wasn’t the focus of the picture, but the ambiance that surrounded it. Now think of the pictures you see in current cookbooks and magazines. The main focus is the food with vibrant colors and very simple settings, props are minimal.

That’s why this last post about composition is all about focus. Something that has worked for me in my recent food photography adventures is to plan ahead. I sit down and plan the pictures I want to shoot. I make a list of the ingredients, props and backgrounds that I would need for each picture, but most importantly, I picture in my mind what the main focus of the picture will be. Will it be the cooked dish or an uncooked ingredient? Will I focus on the garnish of the dish, a plate, an specific prop or the setting in general? Will the food be flying, dripping, hot, cold? Will I tilt the camera or will it be a straight shot? etc.

Life is not perfect and things never (or very rarely) go according to plan. That’s why you need to have  a backup plan with your pictures. Changing the main focus of your picture is good and encouraged to see the results from different approaches. For example, I tried different approaches for these bell pepper shots:

I first tried to focus on the three bell peppers with an overhead shot.

I then approached differently by tilting the camera and focusing on the yellow pepper in the background.

In the last shot I changed to focus to the orange pepper in the foreground.

Even though this setting is very simple, there are many different ways to direct the viewer’s attention to your focal point. Keep in mind that your images have direction and energy. Any viewer will look at this and will follow the (invisible) line set up in any picture. This process is unconscious, but it is helpful to understand how these mechanics work and how we can take advantage of them. Here I will try to explain some of the techniques I’ve been practicing  from Lou Manna’s book, Digital Food Photography.

1. Bullseye. This is the simplest one and consists on placing your main focal point right in the middle of the frame. The viewer will almost immediately focus his/her attention in the middle if the focus is clearly there:

2. Spiral. For westerners, we are used to readig from left to right and from top to bottom. So when you look at a picture you almost automatically follow this same pattern. When composing your pictures you have to keep in mind this. The spiral technique directs the viewer’s attention from the top left corner of your picture towards the middle where the main focus of the picture is.

3. Rule of thirds. Even though this is not a rule (it is more of a suggestion than anything else), this technique is encouraged to be used in almost any kind of photography. It consists in dividing your frame in  into thirds (both horizontally and vertically so that you have 9 parts) and placing your focal points near the intersection of the lines. You don’t have to place a focal point in each intersection, it is only a guide that will help you in the composition of your picture.

In the picture above I have 2 main focal points (the tomato and zucchini in the foreground) but I also have a point of interest in the other two intersections.

I realize that this post might look too technical or complicated (that’s exactly what I thought when I first read Lou Manna’s book), but with a little bit of practice and patience you will understand, and time master, these techniques. I really hope I could explain myself and didn’t complicate things even further. I’ll be trying to answer questions and give further information and resources in the comments section of this post.

¡Buen provecho and happy shooting!

Helpful resources:

• Nikas Culinaria
• Digital Photography School

© Ben for What's Cooking Mexico, 2009. | Permalink | 18 comments |
Post tags: Composition, Food photography, Peppers, Tips

This second installment of the series will focus on a more technical side of composition. After reading Lou Manna’s book, Digital Food Photography, I have been trying to be more technical when framing my shots. The following information and shots are based on the information written in the chapter Composition of Manna’s book.

One of the most important things to remember when shooting a picture is that the camera and lens play a crucial role. Most of my food pictures are taken with a 50mm prime lens (a non-zoom lens) so I don’t worry about proportions too much. But if you are using a wide angle or zoom lens (or in the case of point and shoot cameras the wide or telephoto setting) you have to understand how the proportion of the image will be affected by them. Take a look at the following shots:

This first shot was taken at 28mm (the wider setting on that particular lens). The tomatoes look so distant from one another and the real size of the tomato in the back is distorted. This is because wide angle lenses and settings exaggerate perspective. Just think of the “leaning” buildings taken with fisheye lenses or with your point and shoot in the wide angle setting.

The tomatoes on the second shot, taken at 90mm (the telephoto setting on that same lens), have a better proportion and look closer together. The reason is that the telephoto setting of your lens compresses distance. The lesson to learn here is to use the telephoto setting, even if you have to back away from your food, to have a better proportion and perspective of the foreground and background elements in your pictures.

Next, focus on the way you hold your camera. A straight angle works in many cases, but many others a little tilt will give a shot the perfect perspective and composition. Play around with the angle and the distance you hold your camera when aiming at your subject. In this case I wanted to give the shot above different approaches:

In this case, I think the third picture works best because of the angle of the glasses and because picture 2 is too straight and pictures 1 and 4 make the tomatoes look like they are going to fall off.  Which is another point you have to pay attention when tilting your camera. Is it going to help composition by placing the subject slightly off-center? Or is it going to make the viewer wonder when the food (or drink) is going to fall of the plate?

Next time I’ll talk more about composition (maybe the last post on the series), but for now I hope this little iformation and shots I am sharing here help your food photography. It sure has given me some very good pointers to improve my shots. But remember that the best way to improve your photography skills is by playing (practicing and experimenting) with your camera.

About the subjects for this post: I used tomatoes stuffed with sauteed onions, zucchini, corn kernels, jalapeno peppers and tuna. The best part of this ordeal is that I get to eat the subjects afterward. That’s an arrangement I can live with.

¡Buen provecho and happy shooting!

© Ben for What's Cooking Mexico, 2009. | Permalink | 26 comments |
Post tags: Composition, Food photography, Salad, Summer food, Tips, Tomato

I’ve put off writing this post for some time because I still have a lot to learn about composition. But now I feel comfortable enough to talk about the basics of composition. What is that exactly? Trying to put in simple words such a huge concept: it is the placement and arrangement of your food inside the frame of your picture. In other words, it is the way the food will “come together” in the picture.

In the professional world of food photography, food styling and composition are jobs done by two different people, the food stylist and the photographer. In a past post I already talked about the art of making your food look pretty for the camera. But composition, in the other hand, is a job done mostly behind the lens.

There are several rules and guidelines that apply when composing your picture (I will talk about them in future posts), but it is worth mentioning that food photography, like in any other art, will be perceived differently by different people. This is because our experiences, cultures and backgrounds are different thus affecting the way we perceive the world. Most of us have experienced this first hand when submitting pictures to two of the most popular food porn sites on the blog-o-sphere. I’ve heard so many people wonder why one site will accept a picture while the other rejects it and vice-versa.

That is also the reason why composition is so difficult to understand and manipulate for many people (I include myself here). But like in any other aspect of food photography, it takes some time, practice and patience to get a hold of. I didn’t even know the whole meaning of the concept until I read Digital Food Photography by Lou Manna, an excellent book that covers the basic principles of food photography.

But before I go into details about the mechanics of composition, I want you to look at the first two pictures of these yummy blueberry pancakes (the flying ones) and tell me what you think about the way they are presented within the frame of the picture. Does the picture work for you? Is the subject centered? Does the placement of the pancakes draw your attention to them? Does it convey a sense of movement or stillness? In other words, I’d love to know the way you perceive the subject within the frame.

After that, and if you are game, you can come to the forum and have your pictures commented by other members. Share them with us to know what other people think about their composition. I think that before going into detailed techniques and mechanics it is a good idea to think about how the placement of the food inside the frame can draw attention to the main subject (or drive it away from it).

For now I leave you with this delicious blueberry pancakes (which I made the same way than these mango pancakes only replacing the mango with blueberries). I know mapple syrup and pancakes is a well-established marriage, but I like been disloyal by eating my pancakes with sweetened condensed milk. Trust me on this one, this is something you’ll want to do over and over again.

This last image is my entry to Click, the monthly event dedicated to food photography. This month’s theme is bi-color and although there are more than two colors, with this picture I was going for dark and light. Hopefully it fits the theme.

¡Buen provecho!

© Ben for What's Cooking Mexico, 2009. | Permalink | 23 comments |
Post tags: Breakfast & Brunch, Composition, Food photography, Forum, Tips

I love corn on the cob. In the fairs and street markets in Mexico I would always eat elotes con mayonesa y queso, a classic street food down there. When you walk down the street and see a long line in front of lady (usually) standing next to a big steamer and a table with containers of mayonnaise, cheese and chili powder, then that’s the place to get your elotes.

Last summer I wanted to recreate that delicious street food from my memories, but when I was getting the ingredients ready I wondered how the mayo would turn out if I spiced it up a little. So I chopped one chipotle adobado pepper and mixed it with 1/2 cup of mayo. The result was delicious! For our camping trip last year I also added some Parmesan cheese and packed it in the cooler for easy transportation.

For a while I have been wanting to post this simple tip to make spicy mayonnaise. I finally decided to do it when I was reading an article online on how to photograph steam and realized that a picture of steamy corn would look great. I spent two and a half hours today playing with my food to capture the elusive and ghostly steam with the camera. And here I share with you what I learned:

1. First you need to realize that it would be almost impossible to photograph steamy food. I spent about 10 minutes setting up the lights,  props, and taking the test pictures. By the time I was ready to start taking the “real” pictures the corn would’ve been cold. Besides, mayo on hot corn would melt and look nasty so I used a clothe soaked in boiling water between the two cobs as my source of steam. Other options would be to use a cappuccino machine, a small piece of dry ice or steam chips sold at photography stores.
2. My first test shots were taken against a white background, which didn’t work at all because, unlike other white subjects (eggs, for example), steam doesn’t have defined edges and therefore it will visually blend with the white background. That’s why you need to have a dark background.
3. To photograph steam you will need a backlight. Without this, it will be very difficult to capture the true effect of steam. It’s the light coming through the steam that lights it up. For the first shot above I used 2 flashes. The master flash was attached to the camera with the head tilted at 90° to bounce the light off the ceiling. My backlight was a slave flash to the back and left of the subject shooting through a white umbrella. I also had a mirror to the right and front of the subject to reduce shadows in the front of the picture. Sadly, my slave flash died in the middle of the session so I had to change my strategy. My master flash became an off-camera flash shooting through a white umbrella from the left of the subject and I used a lamp on the right and a mirror in front of the subject to reduce shadows. As you can see in the picture below, the steam is not as prominent because of the lack of a backlight.

Somethings to keep in mind: The bigger the clothe the more steam you will get, but the more difficult it would be to hide it behind your food. Also, you will probably spend a lot of time setting the food and taking pictures, so you might want to keep a pot with boiling water on the stove in order to get fresh steam quickly. Be patient and try different settings and angles. Like I’ve always said, the best way to get the perfect shot is to get your camera out and play with it and your food as often as you can.

I still have a long way to capture steam like a pro, but I think this was a good start and there will be a lot more opportunities to practice, what do you think?

¡Buen provecho!

© Ben for What's Cooking Mexico, 2009. | Permalink | 29 comments |
Post tags: Chipotle adobado, Corn, Mayonnaise, Photography, Tips

Read the rest of Food photography styling

© Ben for What's Cooking Mexico, 2009. | Permalink | 17 comments |
Post tags: Food photography, Salad, Styling

The food photography posts that I have written were well-received that I want to do something different now. I want you guys to put into practice this little bit of knowledge that I share on these posts. That’s why I will give you guys some homework (doesn’t that sound exciting?). Every other week I will post an assignment on Food Photographers Club and you can post your experiences and results with the rest of us. Everybody is encouraged to share tips and constructive criticism. Read about the first assignment at the end of this post.

In the last couple of food photography posts I’ve talked about the importance of light in photography. But having a good source of light won’t automatically translate into a perfectly lighted photograph. The reason is that light has different color temperatures that your camera interprets in different ways. Our eyes adjust automatically to these changes of color but cameras are not that smart, yet. That’s why sometimes your pictures come out with an orange, yellow, green, blue or purple look to them.

This issue has haunted photographers for a long time. Film photographers used to carry around a set of filters in our camera bags to deal with the light color. Fortunately, camera makers have spent a lot of money and time to include in modern cameras a feature that assists photographers with this. Most cameras nowadays have a feature that adjusts the way the sensor of your camera perceives the light color. White balance (WB) is the process of removing unrealistic color casts, so that objects which appear white in person are rendered white in your photo.

A lot of people avoid this feature because they don’t understand it. But the right white balance can make a big difference in your work, especially when you have to shoot inside and don’t have “professional” lighting equipment. I am not going to explain the technicalities of WB because that would be confusing (and because I don’t remember my photography classes from so long ago) Just remember that the best way to learn about your camera’s features is to experiment with them.

Since every camera is different, I encourage you to dust your camera’s manual and find where this feature is. Read your manual not only to find this feature, but many others that your camera has. You already paid a couple of hundreds dollars (at least) for your camera, why not learn and take advantage of all it can do?

Like in the past posts, the pictures for this post haven’t been edited. The first picture was taken next to a window so it was lighted by natural light. The white balance setting was AWB (Automatic White Balance), a setting that works pretty well under natural light. However, when I closed the blinds and turn on an overhead fluorescent light things changed.

These are the white balance settings I used for the following pictures: cloudy, tungsten, fluorescent and AWB. As you can see there is a big difference between cloudy and tungsten and not much of a difference between fluorescent and AWB. Of course, you can edit your photographs afterward with a picture edition software such as photoshop or GIMP. But that will the topic of another post.

And now here’s the first Food Photography Club assignment:

The last three posts have been all about lighting. First we talked about your camera’s manual settings. Then we talked about the source of light and today we talked about White Balance. So what I want you to do for this first assignment is to put it all together. Choose a food subject and shoot it in different light conditions at different settings and write them down. Look at all the pictures you take and choose the one you like the most and share it with us in the forum. This is what I am looking for (if you are not sure what all the following information means, please read my previous 2 posts):

• ISO (100, 200, 400, etc)
• Shutter speed (1/250, 1/125, etc)
• Aperture (f4.5, f 6, etc)
• White Balance setting (cloudy, AWB, tungsten, etc)
• Source of light (natural light, fluorescent light, wireless flash, etc)
• The only editing allowed for this assignment is cropping and resizing.
• Tell us a little bit about your experience with this assignment. How long it took, where  you shot, what lighting worked best for you or anything else you want to share with us.
• You have until May 31st to complete this assignment.

I am creating this because a lot of us want to learn more about and be better at taking pictures.  I hope to see you guys and your pictures there.

Happy shooting!

© Ben for What's Cooking Mexico, 2009. | Permalink | 13 comments |
Post tags: Food photography, Photography, Tips, White Balance

Several weeks ago I published the first post on what I’ve learned about food photography. It was so well received that I decided to continue with this series of posts. That first post was about some of the basic features most modern digital cameras (point and shoot included) have. I also mentioned that the single most important thing to always consider when taking pictures of your food (and in other kind of photography, too) was the lighting. In this post I will try to explain how those two things come together, your camera’s features and lighting. But as I’ve always said, the best way to understand your camera and take better pictures is by experimenting as much as you can.

For this little exercise I am going to use these beautiful guys, Mr and Ms Tomato and Mr and Ms Tomatillos. As in the last post, the only editing the following pictures went trough was compresion and resizing. You can see al the technical information of these pictures on their flickr pages.

Keeping in mind that lighting is the most important thing in photography let’s start with some advice. The most common advice any experienced food photographer will give is to shoot in natural light with your camera’s flash turned off. I agree 100% with them. If you are just learning the tricks of the profession, that is the single best first thing you want to do. Shoot your food on a table next to a window. If the sun is hitting that window use a thin curtain or close the blinds. You want the light to be evenly dispersed and not too harsh on your subject.

Get your camera on Manual mode and use a small number for the aperture and a somehow fast shutter speed, 1/250 (this terminology is explained in my last post) could work, and shoot.

For this picture I used my 50mm lens at f/1.8 aperture and 1/250 shutter speed which let too much light onto the camera’s sensor and overexposed this shot. What do you do next? Experiment, the magic word.

For this second shot I used a faster shutter speed, 1/500, and the same aperture, f/1.8. This settings were still overexposing the sensor to the natural light from the window. So I figured that by closing the blinds to let less light into the room and using a smaller aperture (a bigger f number) would do the trick.

Since I had less light coming through the window I reduced my shutter speed to 1/125 (I rarely shoot faster than 1/250) and used a smaller aperture, f/3.5. These settings gave me the result I was looking for. This is the same picture I used to introduce this post (after some editing with photoshop) because I was happy with the exposure, direction of the light and shadows. Which brings me to the next point I want to write about on this post: light direction and shadows.

Another great advice I’ve read all over the foodie blog-o-sphere is to use a white board to reflect light. Shooting with one source of light (in this case natural light through a window) will inevitable create shadows. Shadows are good for your pictures because they give them a sense of dimension. But too many shadows can make your pictures look dark and cause distraction. Using a reflective surface opposite to the source of light will soften shadows  (note that I didn’t want to get rid of the shadows, only make them less noticeable)

My personal advice here is again to experiment. Move your food and reflecting board around (btw, the board can be anything that reflects light well. I use a white piece of foam, a white umbrella and sometimes the same white paper I use as a background). Position the food and yourself  in front of the window, next to it, in an angle. Play with the settings until you get the results you are looking for. Square food pictures are boring, imho.

But what do you do when there is no natural light? The problem of not having enough light has haunted me in this old 1913 house for a long time. So I’ve acquired some inexpensive equipment to solve it. I first got two lamps like the one you see in the picture above. They were inexpensive (40 dollars for both I believe) and they do a decent job creating something very similar to natural light. But you don’t have to spend all that money. You can get only the bulbs at your hardware store and screw them into any lamp. You just need to make sure they are 5000k – 5500k to give you that natural light feeling.

However, they don’t give as much light as I’d like. I can get good results if I use very slow shutter speeds 1/10 to 1/60 but that requires using a tripod, which I don’t necesarily dislike, but that doesn’t give you as much freedom to move around trying to find the perfect angle of your enchiladas platter. That’s why I got these two guys:

The wirless flash on the right is a very inexpensive (around $35) and will work with any digital camera (that’s what the maker claims) and the one on the left is a Canon flash with a lot of more features (it is more expensive, but all the features make it worthwhile) However, the use of wireless flashes or other kind of lighting is a little bit more advance and I’ll talk about it in future posts.

To end this post I want to answer a question somebody asked on my last post. How do you make the background of a picture look blurry?

What we call depth of field (DoF) is a optical term that refers to the part of the picture that is in focus. A large DoF will have more of your food picture in focus and a small DoF will have less of your food picture in focus.

And how do you achieve a smaller DoF? This is closely related to the aperture of the lens on your camera. Small f numbers will give you small DoF (blurrier) and bigger f numbers will give you bigger DoF (sharper). However, this works better with SLR cameras. I can’t really explain the technical reasons, but they are related to the construction of the lenses. This means that shot and point cameras can’t achieve the same small DoF than SLRs. But don’t worry, there are some ways (cheats) to achieve this effect on your pictures using photoshop. Here’s the link that explains the how-to.

Remember that on my forum there is a section where I am inviting people to share their food pictures so others can share their ideas on how to improve them. The best way to improve our skills is by learning from others, don’t you agree?

¡Buen provecho!

© Ben for What's Cooking Mexico, 2009. | Permalink | 26 comments |
Post tags: Food photography, Lighting, Photography, Tips

First I want to make a couple of announcements. I have been away from the blogosphere because my hard drive decided to quit working after just 4 months of service and I have been recovering my system ever since. Please forgive my silence.

Also, this blog will change formats slightly. The content will be mainly food, like it has been for the past 2 years, but I will also write about my adventures in fitness and photography. Fitness relates closely to food and health. And food photography has inspired me to venture in the amazing world of digital photography. So I think this blog is a good place to share these two other passions of mine. Hopefully my readers will enjoy these new sections. But if you are here only for the food, you can subscribe to just that category by clicking here.

I have been living in Columbus, Ohio for almost three years, but I have never really enjoyed what this city has to offer. One of my resolutions for this year was to get to know the city where I live and work better. That’s why a couple of Saturdays ago I took my camera and walked around downtown taking some pictures of this fair city. There is a lot construction going on downtown right now. But that is just another opportunity to shoot some pictures. The picture above shows some of the buildings and the Town st bridge that is being torn down to build a more secure and bigger one.

Here’s another view of the same bridge.

Just south of that bridge there is another bridge under construction. Construction for the Main street bridge started last year and it’s schedule to open next summer. It’s going to be pretty.

Here’s another view of downtown. This is from the other side of the river. The long structure on the foreground is COSI, a museum for kids that I haven’t visited, yet.

This is one of my favorite buildings in the whole city. This used to be a train station right in Franklinton, a historic neighborhood in the city, and now serves as a fire station. Isn’t it cool?

And finally here are some shots of how spring looks in downtown Columbus. I hope you enjoyed this short photo journal through my home city. I will be posting more pictures on my flickr photostream. To see the properties of any of the pictures click on them. That will take you to flickr where you can click on properties where you can see all the technical information of the shots.
© B.H. Beristain Photography

© Ben for What's Cooking Mexico, 2009. | Permalink | 12 comments |
Post tags: Columbus, Ohio, Photography, Spring

Before I start this post I want to say again that I am not a professional photographer. I took some classes a long time ago when I was in high school and I have been experimenting a lot with my cameras, but that doesn’t make me a pro. Everything I know and share here is what I have been learning lately in regards to food photography. I am doing this because a lot of people have helped me understand it and I want to pass along this knowledge. If this helps at least one person in understanding photography a little bit better then I’ll be a very happy cook

When people ask for advice on how to take better pictures, the usual answer is to not use a flash and take pictures next to a window with lots of natural light. That’s very fine advice, but there is a lot more to that. We love to cook and we want to share our delicious dishes with the world in the form of beautiful photographs so we want to know more about our little cameras, right? Right. I am glad you agree with me, so let’s move on.

First we need to understand that photography is all about light. It was true in the 19th century and it is still true today. What the camera sees through the lens and records in film (and now digitally) is light reflected from the subject. There are many variables that will determine how the camera sees and interprets that light and that will give us many different results.

In this era of digital photography cameras have become available to anyone bringing their prices down. So now we find point and shoot cameras with features that were only available in bulky, expensive professional cameras some years ago.

To be able to understand the variables in light we need to understand some of these basic features. I am not going to go technical here (I myself don’t understand many of the technical language), instead I will show you with pictures some of those variables. I did a little exercise with my Canon Powershot a540 (a point and shoot) using this salad to demonstrate some of its features.

The last two pictures were taken with my Canon D60, but the following ones were taken with my point and shoot and haven’t been edited in any way. Maybe in the future I’ll write about some editing tips, but I need to learn more about it first. The digital photography world is new to me.

When it comes to exposure there are three variables on the camera that affect your pictures:

ISO is the measure of light sensitivity. In film photography this is the film speed. The bigger the number the faster the film. Fast films are used to shoot in low light conditions and sports. The same rule is true in digital photography, but it now refers to the sensitivity of your camera’s sensor to light. Just keep in mind that bigger ISO numbers reduce the images quality in most point and shoots.

Aperture is the opening in the lens when the picture is taken. The smaller the number the bigger the aperture will be letting more light in through the lens. So an aperture of f3.5 will let more light through the lens than an f5 aperture.

Shutter speed is the amount of time the shutter opens to let light in. In other words, it is the amount of time your sensor is exposed to the light. The longer the shutter stays opened the more light the sensor will “see”. This is measured in seconds and fractions of a second so when you see 1/250 that means the shutter will remain opened for 250th of a second. 1/1000 will be a faster speed than 1/60. Fast shutter speeds are used when the amount of light is abundant or you want to freeze some action, for example when shooting a sports event. Just keep in mind that slower shutter speeds (1/40 and lower) will require that you keep the camera steady. Any minimum shaking of the camera will result in blurry pictures. For slow speeds I recommend using a tripod and the timer feature to assure a crisp image.

So how does this come together when photographing food?  Here are the pictures I talked about.

This first picture was taken in Auto mode. The camera reads the amount of light and determines the ISO speed, Aperture and Shutter speed. That’s fine when you have tons of light, but it is not fun when light is limited or when you want to be creative.

In your camera you will see different modes, the one most of us use in the beginning is Auto, but there are three more I want to focus on right now:

Tv means shutter speed priority. In this mode you set the shutter speed and the camera calculates the aperture.

Av means aperture priority. In this mode you set the aperture and the camera calculates the shutter speed.

M means manual and here you set the shutter speed and aperture yourself.

See how the same subject is seeing differently by the camera when you play with this features and modes:

ISO: 100 Aperture: f3.5 Shutter speed: 1/125

ISO: 400 Aperture: f3.5 Shutter speed: 1/125

ISO: 200 Aperture: f3.5 Shutter speed: 1/60

As you can see the same subject with the same amount of reflected light is seeing differently by the camera when we change the variables. These are the basics you have to know before you start playing with your camera’s “creative mode”. The best thing about digital photography is that you can see the results right away and change the settings accordingly.

This information is more extensively explained in many photography sites and blogs, but I wanted to write it here without all the technical language. I hope you find it helpful. However, I think that the best way to learn your camera’s settings is to get it out of its case and start shooting. It doesn’t matter what. Get an apple and shoot it in different light conditions with different settings. The only way to master your camera is by using it!

This is only one of many tips about food photography I have learned. I like to study other food pictures and learn about them. Another way to learn is by letting others critique our work. That’s why I have started a new board in my forum for this. If you want to participate and learn from what others have to say, share your pictures with us and join the conversation. I am sure we all can learn from one another.

Please let me know if you found this post useful and if you’d like me to write more about this topic.

© Ben for What's Cooking Mexico, 2009. | Permalink | 31 comments |
Post tags: Photography