food and drink photography workshop
Last Saturday I went to the extensive food photography workshop with Chris Pearce hosted by Georges Cameras in Sydney. It was held at Door Knock - a small cocktail and wine bar in Pitt Street in the city. Apparently, it’s one of Sydney's hard-to-find underground bars. They’re not kidding - you look for a nondescript door with an easy-to-miss sign beside a coffee shop and you wander down two flights of concrete stairs to get to it. When you’re there you feel utterly detached from the world above. That’s not always a bad thing. We were so far underground that even the wifi couldn’t find us.
We were a motley crew - ten of us in total. We started with some input from Chris about his background and experience. He’s a very talented and highly sought after food and drink photographer. He has photographed for some of Sydney's most popular restaurants. He regularly shoots for top publications and has some pretty impressive clients.
We then moved onto to the art of photographing drinks, namely cocktails. Chris modelled his process and then we had quite a bit of time to practise.
Here are some of my cocktail shots…
I used my Sony A7riii with my Tamron 28 - 75mm f/2.8 lens and the Profoto flash lighting. OMG, that lighting was phenomenal! If anyone has a spare $3000 and wants to buy me a gift, feel free to click here to purchase and make sure your credit card is on hand.
After the drinks, we focussed on photographing food. There was quite a variety to shoot and after some modelling by Chris, we were able to move plates, platters and dishes of food around to different tables looking for the best composition and light and practising what we’ve been shown.
Here are some of my food shots…
After the shooting, we got to do some eating - and before you ask - no, not the food that we had been leaning, breathing and drooling over but fresh-from-kitchen morsels of deliciousness. We had mac’n’cheese croquettes which, if truth be told, were more like Rubik’s Cube-sized parcels of molten cheese and pasta, a mezze plate, cayenne seasoned sweet potato fries with Kewpie mayo and pork bao buns. They were devoured before anyone had a chance to take a pic. No, really!
After our post-shoot break, we proceeded to Georges Cameras studio for editing & post production. I’ll share some of Chris’s tips about this at another time.
Throughout our six hours together, Chris shared a lot of his tips and tricks. He was very generous with giving information about how he shoots, the camera settings, lighting and equipment he uses, his workflow and his post-production process.
Below is a summary:
lenses
60mm macro
15mm macro (I didn’t know this was a thing)
35mm
camera settings
100 ISO
200 shutter speed (no need for a tripod; great for hand-held camera shots)
f/5.6 aperture for most shots
f/8 - f/11 aperture for flatlays, especially if there are different heights of food items
lighting
back and side lighting is the most flattering for drinks and food. It gives beautiful form and depth to the subject
soft lighting (indirect light with soft shadows) is particularly flattering for food
hard lighting (direct light with harsh shadows) provides a strong contrast between bright and dark tones.
harsh lighting with bold shadows is in vogue at the moment
equipment
Profoto B10 (off-camera flash) with grid and barn door accessories - approx. $3000
Profoto Air Remote TTL-C approx. $600
small umbrella (for soft light for food photography) like this one
Other interesting insights:
Chris doesn’t use a lot of props in his set-ups. He often positions a plate or a bottle or glass on the edge of a table for an interesting composition. He rarely uses a tripod, preferring the freedom to move around his subject to determine the best angles and lighting for his shots. Using the flash light set-up, allows him to use a shutter speed that is suitable for hand-held photography. He even commented that with the right light, you can use a phone camera to get a pretty decent shot.
What do you think about dark and moody food and drink photography? Are you drawn to it or do you prefer light and bright shots?