Time to step up my game and start making food specifically for the camera. I had some ripe apricots and a pomegranate, and experimented with one way of combining them, but it didnt work out so well.
Today I bought this giant vanilla meringue, setup the shoot – broke it apart, loaded it with greek yoghurt/creme fraiche, apricots and shot it.
WOW!!
Everytime I shoot I make ALL OF THE MISTAKES!!!
So here is what I learned this time round:
– taking time to setup the gear, style the shoot using a standin, getting the lighting etc right is well worth it
– pay attention to the positioning of your hero item on the food – in this instance it was the sliced fan of apricot – except I didn’t notice the first shots were of the BACK of it *sigh*
Still looked pretty good tho!
– if you are mixing up whites, make sure they are the same tones – the white of the board is quite blue toned but the plate is a lot warmer and then the meringue etc is other tones of white.
– cut apricots go brown quickly – I need lemon juice or something to stop that
– on your first shots ZOOM IN AT 100% and view – and check for cat hairs!!
I have two white long hair cats and the fur gets into everything! There are two in this shot and I didnt notice til 3/4 way thru, so most of my shots were wasted.
– tweezers are amazing – glad I am assembling a tool kit
– paper towels and a spray bottle of water are my new best friend – cleans up pomegrante juice off the background (and hands)
– if you want your food to look messily assembled – you have to work carefully to make it LOOK like that!
Food that is messily assemble just looks awful – you have to build it up in careful layers
And finally – yes its hard work, but it does pay off 🙂
I am TOTALLY eating this BTW !
Learning to See Light 
Followed you here from composition essentials Facebook group. So great that you posted about your experience and shared your learning. Shooting tethered was a game changer for me. I had to shoot untethered this week as my laptop was in for repair, and I was so lost! Love the angle you ended up eventually shooting at. So much better than the overhead. Your mess is perfectly composed and looks natural. Bravo.
Thanks, and appreciate you visited 🙂 Yes Im not so good at shooting tethered when I need to – its an extra level of fussing about to do, but I learned the hard way with this shoot, that it IS WORTH IT!!
I push myself to shoot as many angles as I can, pulling back and going close, in the hope I get a keeper at the end of it 🙂