Today food photographer Jonathan Pollack shares some wonderful food photography tips (and some positively mouth watering photos. Also check out our previous Food Photography Tips..

The food photography techniques in this post are ones that I use in photos I take for both a local food magazine and my wife’s cupcake blog. I’ve broken these techniques down into a few areas that give some ideas and suggestions to help you photograph and showcase your food.

Styling Your Food for Photography

I’ve never had the luxury of working with a food stylist; if you aren’t well-known, you will most likely take on this role yourself. While I lack the massive collection of props that a professional stylist would own, I do have at my disposal some place settings, backgrounds, and typically some degree of control over how food is presented. I don’t tend to use stand-ins or other tricks to get the results that I want, but remember that those are available if you need them. Whether I am at home or out shooting at restaurants, I am always challenged to use my on-hand supplies and creativity to create the right mood and draw the viewer in without distracting them. Getting started in styling food is not as difficult as you might think:

• Place solid or simple patterned papers (available at a scrapbooking store) as a background. Figure out what works and does not work in terms of contrast and similarity. Also, make sure that you have enough paper to completely cover the entire field of view.
• Experiment with incorporating serving pieces, whole place settings, napkins, placemats, and tablecloths. Set the table with silverware, drinks, and even candles to convey the right mood. If you’re budget-conscious, you can always find these items at thrift and resale stores, flea markets, and garage sales.
• If you have multiple food subjects available to you (like two dozen cupcakes from which to choose), use only the best examples. A blemish can easily ruin an entire photoshoot.
• Mist fruit, vegetables, and glassware with water to create condensation and make them look more appetizing. Shiny food appeals more than dull food, and anything you can do to make your food shine will make a more interesting photo.
• Incorporate elements from the food you’re shooting or place appropriate condiments in the frame. Slice cucumbers thinly and place them on top of yogurt soup to lend it some freshness. Accompany Thai food with small bowls of sugar, chili, fish sauce, and fresh limes. Some ideas will work, and some won’t.

Possibly the most photographed subject but likely to be the least understood in the photographer’s output is landscapes.

As author Frost candidly admits, his early efforts at landscape photography “left a lot to be desired” but a change in his home environment left him inspired by the unfamiliarity of new surroundings.”

The book’s early chapters deal with choice of equipment, with a loving last look at film cameras, along with the quirky Holga and Polaroids … quickly followed by a reluctant, fresh look at digital and its pros and cons.

Many of the succeeding pages deal with using filters, choice of subject and how to understand how the time of day, along with the quality and type of light you will encounter throughout the shooting day and the effect of varying colour temperature in …

Weekly Assignment

We finished another one of our assignments in our month of black and white, High Contrast Black and White. High contrast photos typically have deep blacks and bright whites, and there is a notable difference between the darkest and lightest parts of the image. Our winner this week was TTHW‘s jeans shot. This is the kind of shot you might have seen before, but there’s something about a shot you might have seen before that is done well. The lines create a very interesting composition, the fabric and zipper is sharp, and the entire shot just catches your eye, and even adds a bit of sex appeal the way the zipper is positioned. Our runners up this week actually had a 3 way …

Image by ashley rose

This weekend your photography challenge is to take an share an image with the theme of ‘EYES’ (theme suggested by Brenda on our Facebook Page).

You’re welcome to take the theme in any direction that you like – the eyes might be yours, a friend or family member’s, an animals, or you might to do something a little more abstract – it’s totally up to you.

Once you’ve taken your Eye photos – choose your best 1-2, upload them to your favorite photo sharing site and share a link to them here in comments below.

If you tag your photos on Flickr, Twitter or other sites with Tagging tag them as #DPSEYES to help others find them. Linking back to this page might also help others

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If you’re just learning photography and you feel that learning to use your DSLR camera on manual is too daunting, here’s a little tip I used when learning to think for my camera: let the auto settings guide you. By auto settings, I mean the ones where the settings are set for certain situations and you don’t have to do anything else. These include portrait, macro, sports, landscape, etc.

Take sports mode for instance. On a Canon 500d, the sport mode while I was indoors at the time was set at: f/3.5, 1/320th sec, auto ISO.

What can you learn from this? A fast shutter speed captures and freezes motion quickly. When I first was learning about why my camera used a smaller f/stop in sports mode, I was confused. Landscape …