I’m on a big cooking kick. Inspired by our new kitchen, I have a newfound determination to learn to cook, not just follow a recipe. Thanks to my aunt, I’ve become obsessed with Cook’s Illustrated Magazine and America’s Test Kitchen online. This week I made a whopping 6 new recipes.
My favorite dish of the week was Pan Seared Chicken Breast from America’s Test Kitchen. It was awesome. While the dish was successful, I’m feeling frustrated behind the camera. Earlier in the week I photographed a killer steak I grilled up for Pete. The photo looked dry, rubbery and somewhat nauseating. Below are photos of my chicken dinner. Sadly, they fall short of my personal expectations. The lighting is harsh, the focus falls wrong and I’m clueless about “food styling”.
This weekend I found Food Photography: From Snapshots to Great Shots
by Nicole S. Young. I devoured it (hee hee) in a day. It’s packed with real life examples, concise lighting tips and logical compositions. It also has some camera basics and a ton of Photoshop tips. Sadly, it does not help with my biggest quandary: How do I get my dish photographed when my family wants to be fed an hour ago?
As someone who’s obsessed with the technical and artistic aspects of my camera, I realize getting great food shots will take a lot of practice and patience. I’ll keep you posted on my successes and failures. In the meantime, if you have any tips, I’m all ears!
Yeah, that’s the worst part! I know the food bloggers really have to work the photography into their workflow, and with a hungry family that spells disaster. Sounds like the way to solve this is to either cook early in the day and photograph before it’s dinner time or pull a serving behind and photograph it later!
I really don’t see how one can balance the before dinner do the homework, whoops go pick up Jack from guitar, ooh when is that science project due, oh wait cook dinner and feed hungry kids rush with styling and photographing food while it’s hot!
Food is one thing I haven’t photographed alot. I loved Cook’s Illustrated, but I really love Cook’s Country. It’s also from America’s test kitchen. Hope your experimenting goes well
[...] did a super quick photo shoot before I served this dish. I used several tricks I picked up from the book I mentioned in last week’s post including, adding parsley in a triangle pattern, plating on a smaller dish and using a white foam [...]
Great close up image of the chicken – it looks very appetising!