light lunch - tasty or not ????

[Mr Sandman]

good morning,
here is an image i took whilst cooking for a recent charity event ( i am a chef ) i put together this dish and just snapped away before the food disappeared to the restaurant. i am interested in food photography and just wondered if anyone could give a few tips on this.
i have removed the colour as i am using this shot as a background in one of my menus and think this works well as the full colour shot seemed too "messy".

does the exposure work ?
does the the shallow depth of field make it more interesting.?

sorry had to add link as for some reason the sharing options on flickr are not working at the moment



light lunch | Flickr - Photo Sharing!

EXIF
camera eos 350 D
F / 5
exp 1/30
iso 100
focal length 33mm
natural and flourescent lighting no flash

[LynnDA]

I think the exposure and depth of field work well but personally I would be tempted to put a hint of colour in there. That said, in my relatively inexperienced opinion, I thinkd it's a good shot.

[DanielLane]

I do a ton of food photography for a local paper, a few web sites and occasionally for magazines. One thing about your shot is the color. Food photography is mainly about making people really want to eat the food. The sepia tone/ lack of color in your shot doesn't make it very appetizing. It doesn't really make me say "Yum! I want some". The shot it's self is nice and all. Good composition as far as I can tell, but a little dark in areas making the details disappear. With out colors, it's hard to tell what the food is. The main problem I have is the lack of any colors. I'm guessing that stuff on the right is some kind of meat, but hat about the line of sauce underneath? What type is it? are the colors all vibrant and all, or is it just brown? The micro greens down the center... I would love to see those glowing green, showing the vibrance of the new life of the plant. And with out the color, I'm not sure what is on the left other than the champagne grapes in something rolled up?

Do you still have the original shot? Even not fully processed would be nice to see. I'd love to check out the colors you had there to work with.

If you want to use a shot for the background of a menu, try for something a little more obvious. Something that is easy to identify with out much color. This plate is inviting color too much for a background.

This of course is just my opinion, take it for what it's worth. And I would still really like to see the original of this shot in color!

[TNH]

Originally Posted by Mr Sandman

good morning,
here is an image i took whilst cooking for a recent charity event ( i am a chef ) i put together this dish and just snapped away before the food disappeared to the restaurant. i am interested in food photography and just wondered if anyone could give a few tips on this.
i have removed the colour as i am using this shot as a background in one of my menus and think this works well as the full colour shot seemed too "messy".

does the exposure work ?
does the the shallow depth of field make it more interesting.?

It's a pretty nice picture. It would look really good on a menu. I can see why you removed the color, if it's going to be a background on a menu, the bright colors would be distracting.
I agree with DanielLane, though, without the colors, it's hard to tell what the food is. Could you show us the original version of your photo? I'd like to see what it looked like before.
When you're taking pictures of food, it really looks more appetizing when it's in color. Here's something you could try. I'm no expert, but if you want the colors to be there, but not be too bright, you could try this. Turn down the saturation. You'll still have the color, but it won't be so distracting when it's a background.
Here's an example of what you could try- All I did on this was turn down the saturation a little.

[Mr Sandman]

thanks for your comments guys. sorry but i cannot post original shot as my back up hard drive went pop a couple of weeks ago and didnt have this one backed up anywhere else...
will keep going though ( lost hundreds ).
will post again soon when i take some more food shots...
thanks again . any more comments well received .

[welldonechef]

I agree. As a chef, it is my business to make food appetizing. The thing is with food, if you want to make it monochomatic, you really need to plan for that. What you have is a photo that looks post-processed, and the sepia tone just really makes things look unappetizing. It's too bad, because the terrine and the duck breast would otherwise look good, and the olives may have added a nice touch to the scene. (I am guessing it is duck - and that is ANOTHER reason this shot doesn't work - you can't tell what the food is.)

Remember that especially with food, we eat with out eyes. A food picture should make me want to dig in!