Photography

Photography for a Cooking Recipe eBook

I am currently shooting food pictures for my wife’s upcoming recipe ebook ‘ Minimalist Cooking 27 Practical Recipes.

The problem with photographing a series of shots for a publication can be defined as;

How to make the photographs form a cohesive collection without having them having a formulaic feel.

Sometimes it is good just to try something different and this shot is one such case. An attempt to get away from the white or back-lit backgrounds hence the piano stool, strange angle and blurred street background. Read more…

Circuit City Photography – Working with Scale

As a photographer working with scale has always fascinated me.

The idea of using electronic circuit boards, transistors and the suchlike as a metaphor for a city is hardly a new one. I wanted to attempt to capture this in an image but I wanted to focus on photographic atmospherics to push it away from the cold hard digital feel of the circuit board and more towards the ambiguity and less defined feel of a city. This image is not quite there but there is enough promise to make another attempt at some point in the future.  I feel that there is more mileage yet in my circuit city photography project. Read more…

Lighting Food Photography – Metal and Reflective Surfaces

This is something a little different in the lighting food photography department. It is a photograph of a piece of carrot cake but shot in top of our oven. The oven is one of those with the burners under a translucent black material, presumable some type of fire resistant plastic. The background is an aluminum splash panel that was attached to the wall to make cleaning easier. Read more…

Photographing Food – Less is Often More

The rise of minimalist cooking is changing the art of food photography. The following is a look at some of the techniques adopted by photographers to capture the simplicity and the spirit of this modern cuisine. Whether it is because of the recession or a genuine desire to downsize and simplify, minimalist cooking has become extremely popular.  Everything from expensive and hard to acquire  ingredients to rarely used, specialized utensils and equipment have been pared back to the bare minimum. Less is definitely more. Many photographers have noticed this change, either consciously or intuitively and are evolving and adapting their techniques to suit. The old sumptuous saturated glistening overfilled image just doesn’t seem to be a good match for this new approach to cooking and food in general. Read more…

The Minimalist Cook – The eBook Recipe Project

This small but perfectly formed ebooklet represents my wife’s first foray into the world of  publishing.  Until recently she owned her own small commercial bakery but had to give it up for health reasons. Publishing was a logical progression as she is a more than fair writer – the success of her non-cooking blog, Minimalist Woman is testament to this fact. minimalist woman, minimalist cook – you’ve probably spotted the theme that is going on here.

While Meg, my wife, did the hard work of actually compiling and testing the recipes I got to do the fun stuff such as the photography and the layout work. I was never really much into food photography before we embarked on this project but as time goes on I’m getting to enjoy it more and more. It is probably the least abstract and easily judged type of photography there is. If the image makes someone hungry it works and if it makes them queasy it fails. Simple.

My serious photography does tend towards the sparse and this really seems to go well with the who minimalism thing that Meg is all about. This is a happy coincidence, it was  never really discussed and she certainly didn’t try to direct me when shooting. Our system was basically,

Meg: “Steve I need a photograph of this”

Me: “Ummm OK”

sometimes less really is more.

The ebooklet  is  a sample of the work that will appear in the first full size version which is scheduled for completion towards the end of August. It contains seven very easy recipes (simplicity is the theme) such as basic roast chicken, ditto beef, several salads including tuna, chicken and a wonderful bean one along with the best chile I’ve ever tasted.

Anyway, it is free and can be downloaded from here.

Whether you are into food photography or really good basic food it is worth checking out.  I fully admit to being biased but I am really excited by this project and especially the work that Meg is doing.