Taking Awesome Food Pictures Using Stuff From Your Kitchen
There are many items you can find in the kitchen to enhance your food photography.
Your light source can be the light shining through a window or the simple desk lamp discussed recently in General Tips for Home Food Photography.
This time we will be reflecting light off our light source onto our food subject. For this, you can use a shiny cookie sheet.
Just hold the flat side against your light source, on the opposite side of your food subject from your light source. Your light source should be casting a light from your subject’s back to almost the front, leaving your subject’s front area darker.
By reflecting the light towards the front of your subject you are balancing out the exposure, but since the reflected light won’t be as intense as your light source from the back, the front of your subject will still be darker thereby keeping the original visual depth created by the manipulation of light and decreasing the contrast to give you better detail.
Other items you can use are cake boards that are white or lined with aluminum foil. You can even use a frying pan’s shiny side as well as it’s lid or a white plastic chopping board. Just about anything white or shiny white. I normally use a white styrofoam (expanded rigid polystyrene plastic) board.
You can use a dining chair as your light stand by taping or tying your shiny kitchen stuff reflectors on it. Once you have your reflectors in the right place, pointed towards your subject in order to cast the reflected light onto the front of your subject and spread out towards the back of your subject, just one reflector, you can shoot away. Just make sure your focus is spot on and the exposure is set for the center of your food subject.
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