[Lunatique]

I've always wanted to try food photography, and luckily, when Ming Ke Restaurant needed to have all the in-store wall posters of their menu replaced, they asked me to shoot the new versions. Here are a few of my personal favorites out of the fifty dishes I shot:






A couple of the finalized wall posters:



Behind the Scenes :
I only had a few hours to shoot 50 different dishes, and it was absolutely insane. I had to figure out a lighting scheme that could be used with most dishes and only required minimum adjustment to suit drastically different dishes. There was no food stylist on this shoot, so I pretty much had to work with what came out of the kitchen, and moved stuff around with a chopstick if something stuck out too much. It went pretty smoothly considering the circumstances. The chefs cooked away while I was setting up the lights, then I did some tests with the first dish to determine the lighting ratio. After that, the long stream of dishes just flowed out of the kitchen one after another while I tried to not take too long with each dish (so that the food doesn't dry out or lose the fresh colors). Elena had a small bowl of oil and a small brush ready so I could brush some of the sheen back onto the foods that had started to dry. She was also my "napkin girl," meaning whenever I was moving the food/plates around and got oil on my hands, she'd give me a napkin so I could wipe clean before touching the camera again.

The lighting I used was a fairly simple one, since time constraint was a severe problem--one large softbox, one spot with regular dish reflector, and a gold reflector. For drastically different dishes, I essentially just moved the spotlight and altered the brightness to better model the form and texture of different foods. The softbox mostly remained the same, except when shooting dishes that were drenched in sauce--it created too much reflection and had to be moved accordingly. The gold reflector pretty much stayed the same too.

I started out with the EF 70-200 f/2.8 L IS because I wanted a compressed, close-cropped look, but soon realized that my tripod was not tall enough to afford me the right angle I needed at the focusing distance the 70-200 required. I contemplated the Tamron SP 28-75 f/2.8, which is a great performer stopped down a stop or two, and it's got a very short focusing distance (Tamron labels it as a macro lens, but it's not quite that close), but as the dishes waiting to be photographed started to pile up, I decided to use the EF 50 f/1.4 so that I only had one focal length to deal with. I shot at around f/4 and f/5, and occassionally at, f/8, and f/11 for dishes that required deeper depth of field. I ended up not using the tripod at all, which is fine since I really hate tripods anyway, and I love being able to alter shooting angles on the fly. With studio flashes it doesn't matter that much because they have such a short duration anyway (unless you are shooting fast-moving subjects or using very small aperature).

[M@.]

Damn, now you made me hungry. Great pics Robert!

[Godwin]

wow yes, the chicken... and the porridge... nicely shot (even though I can't appreciate all that technical stuff heh)
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[Vyle]

Very nice photos, and I really enjoyed reading your shooting adventure, having been through few of those before... Only comment, is on the last image, the egg being centered in the middle of the pic kinda bothers me a bit composition-wise. but hey, I am being very picky there
My fav is the second one, beautiful colors.

[screenfx]

There is a large product photography studio i visited in High Point NC, and they said when they shoot poltry that they use air brushed raw meat. Same with breads.
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[Max]

yummy. nice photos!

[eyewoo]

Having aspent 12 years in the film biz, I was part of many crews shooting food commercials... The food always looks so delicious, but it is air brushed, molded, propped up and generally sprayed with insect repellant to keep flies from getting into the scene.

Crew members are warned not to pick or munch at the food after the shoot...
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[Tzan]

Love the second one, the green and brown is great, although I'm not sure what kind of meat that is

When I saw the egg image I though that I would have popped those bubbles and done something with the red spots on the yoke. But after reading the comments its amazing that you got all 50 done in just a few hours.



Eyewoo: yuk!

[Lunatique]

Thanks for the comments!

Yeah, working under such pressure, there was no way for me to fully implement all the ideas I had, or give each dish the proper attention. And I had to work with what came out of the kitchen, as I had no food stylist on the shoot, and no expensive wax replicas or any other type of artificial additives/enhancements. The food in the photos are 100% edible, and quite delicious!

A couple of the finalized wall posters:

[Godwin]

Yes they probably taste as good as they look... Damn, and cheap too!
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Derelict Studios|Godwin's Space

[Francis]

These are great man, very appetizing photos. I can almost smell the dishes! Is that second one that beef noodle soup? Yum~

Anyway nice photography skillz.
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Francis Tsai
TeamGT Studios

[Socar MYLES]

The photographs worked out great--perfect focus, bright colours, and the food looks absolutely delicious. (Unfortunately, though, I can hardly look at it--since getting food poisoning from a local Chinese restaurant a couple of years back, I haven't been able to stand any Chinese food at all, or anything with both meat and ginger in the same dish. Which means most of my favourite dishes, sadly enough.)
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[buzzz3d]

You had to eat all that in just a few hours?

Great pics, love the colours in the second one.

[Ragnarok]

Wow, really good photos. It's amazing the results you got with all that constrains.

I recently got a Canon EF 50mm 1.8f and I got to say I just love it, the photos are really crisp =)
I bet the restaurant owner is happy with his new menu
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"Ever forward, my darling wind." -Master Yuppa
Seigetsu

[eyewoo]

[Lunatique]

[quote="eyewoo"]