Apple shot

I shoot food for stock photos. Food photography is awesome...if you know what you are doing. For some photographers, food photography is a nightmare. I guess it depends on what you are shooting. Fruits and vegetables aren't so bad. Newly cooked food is kind of a pain to shoot. Basically you'd have to arrange each element in your cooked food to make it look better. Professional food photographers even use vaseline to make some of the dishes look more appetizing. Of course, you're not going to eat food with vaseline in it.

Most of the time I just stick with fruits and vegetables. All you have to do with them is wash them, then position them in your shooting table. I make sure that the actual fruit I pick is free from blemishes and bumps and scrapes...if in case they do have them, I fix them in post processing. Pretty simple stuff.

For this shot, I used 4 lights. I know I could've used less lights but the lights were already set up in my studio so might as well use all of them. I position 2 lights in the front, 45 degrees to the subject from each side, another light on top of the subject, and then a light that will illuminate the background. I prefer blowing out the backgrounds with these kinds of shots. I used the light on my right side as a fill so I cut the power half of what I'm using for the main light on my left. The top light was slightly underpowered based on my main light too, then I went full power on the background light...for the overexposed effect on the background.

I used my Sigma 70mm EX macro on my Canon 50d for this shot. I attached it to a tripod and then focused manually. I set my aperture between f11 to f13. I need the most depth of field that I can get for these 2 shots. Also with that amount of light, those aperture values are supposed to cut that much light off. I then took my shots.


I loved how this photo turned out. Just seeing the tops of the apples.


I went in closer for this shot. The f13 aperture still gave me a shallow dof because I was close to what I was shooting.

Now that I have a plexiglass shooting table, It's easier to overexpose the background just by hitting it with a strobe light from behind. I highly recommend getting one if you do a lot of shooting like this.