This past Thursday I was asked to take some photo’s of an upcoming menu for the new ‘Lardon Restaurant’. I’ve never really done anything in terms of food product shots before, other than the normal being at dinner and taking photos in poorly lit dining rooms. Given this opportunity to create my own ‘set’ of sorts, I was able to do a bit of research in terms of food photography and spent a lot of time just looking at photos of food. In the end, I decided to go with the setup of 2 flashes with shoot through umbrella’s, one at 2 o’clock and one at 8 o’clock. I was originally doing some test shots with a reflector but I found that the 2nd flash helped neutralize some of the harsher aspects of a reflector. The flash was at a ratio of 1:4 (2oclock:8oclock) to get the light that I wanted and went from there. I also decided to bring my laptop and hook that up to the camera so the client could see the shots and make any suggestions or adjustments to his food. Given I don’t have a food stylist I could use all the chef input I could get. This is definitely something I’d like to try again, after all as with most photography practice makes perfect, if there is any such thing as perfect. In the end the client was happy with his shots, as was I. Lardon Restaurant opens officially March 26th, 2010. From the samples I had during the shoot, everything tastes delicious! You can also check out some shots of Roncesvalles that I took hanging in the restaurant too!
