Here are some tricks I've discovered for getting great images while photographing food:
Light your subject from the back. Many times foods are grouped on a plate and the various items merge with each other. Backlighting food helps to separate the shapes of different items on the platter and helps to reveal texture.
Even though backlighting is important, be sure to fill in your scene from the front as well to bring out the details in the shadow areas. To do so, use a reflective material to bounce light in from the key light source. (Chapter 10 provides further information on lighting.)
Keep angle in mind. Of course, you can shoot from any angle you want, but you should understand what the angle says about the subject. Consider these guidelines:
• A high angle shows food as viewers are used to seeing it in reality when seated at a table, so the angle looks natural in photographs.
• A low angle gives the perspective as if the viewer is looking up at the subject. This angle isn't a natural one for someone to see food from in real life, and it often causes the subject to appear as a hero of sorts.
• A bird's-eye view of food is interesting when you have various shapes to work with, and it gives viewers the sense that they're directly over the food, as if they were about to dig in to it.
Figure 15-6 shows the same scene photographed with a traditional high angle and with a bird's-eye view.
Get close to your subject. Doing so helps you draw more attention to it and show the textures, juices, and smaller ingredients.
Choose a background that has appropriate colors for your specific subject. Similar colors work well to make the subject fit in, and opposite colors make the subject stand out. In Figure 15-6, the subject fits into the scene because of the similarity in colors. This similarity makes it seem like it belongs there. If you have distracting background details in your composition (and you can't choose another background), use a shallow depth of field to eliminate them.
Figure 15-6: Two angles of the same food item.
You can combine these and other compositional elements to achieve the look you want. The photo in Figure 15-7, for example, uses many different elements. A shallow depth of field eliminates the details from outside the window in the background, and the low angle makes the dessert look like a piece of art rather than just something you eat. The close perspective also reveals the dessert's texture. The plant in the background gives a sense of environment, but it isn't distracting because of the shallow depth of field. The glass of juice in the background acts as a complimentary color to the garnish on top of the dessert, and the backlighting highlights the texture and shapes of the dessert while separating it from the background.
Figure 15-7: Multiple compositional elements combine to create one message.
Working with Architectural and Interior Photography
Like photography, architecture is an art form that uses composition to create works that are functional and aesthetically pleasing. The spaces created by architects and interior designers affect your mood while you're in them. They manipulate the way you feel, and it happens in such a subtle way that you likely won't notice it. Consider the outside of a building as the cover of a book and the interior spaces as the content inside that book. Each building is a story, and an architectural photographer's job is to document that story in the best way possible.
When photographing a building, think about the architect who designed it and why she did things the way she did. And when shooting interiors for a hotel, restaurant, condo, or home, pay attention to how the decor works with the architecture to provide a complete mood in your image. All the design work in architectural and interior photography has already been done and is laid out in front of you. You just have to know it when you see it and be able to capture it appropriately on your digital sensor.
Often you have to tweak the layout of a room's design to accommodate for the specific camera angle you've chosen. Some furniture may have to be moved to better reveal details that are behind it, and some angles and placements of furniture may have to be cheated a bit in order to better suit your composition. Look through the viewfinder while your assistant moves the elements based on your instructions. If you're shooting in a privately owned property, be respectful of the owner's concerns about moving furniture, and involve them in the creative process by showing them the results of your styling on the camera's display screen.
I provide you with some guidance on photographing both exteriors and interiors in the following sections. The images used in this section are courtesy of Craig Denis, a photographer and friend of mine who specializes in architectural and interior photography.
In Chapter 12,1 explain how you can raise and lower the lens element of a tilt-shift lens to correct distortion caused by high and low perspectives. These lenses are great for shooting architecture and interiors, but if you don't have one, you can correct distortion with your photo-editing software. I discuss postproduction techniques in Chapter 18.
Crafting images of building exteriors
To get great compositions of building exteriors, you first need to determine the best time of day to photograph. After all, sometimes the lighting is the most interesting part about the exterior of a building. Because your subject is large and can't be moved or repositioned, you have to shoot when the sun is in the appropriate area for your desired lighting. Take some time before your shoot to figure this out. Go to the location in the morning and in the afternoon to see which looks best. Also, check to see whether the building looks best at night.
If you're going to photograph a building at night, start shooting just after the sun goes down and continue shooting until it gets dark. Sooner or later, you'll hit the specific time during which the ambient light that's fading from the day and the building's lights expose properly together. Think of the ambient light as your fill light and the building's lights as your key light. (Check out Chapter 10 for more on these types of light.) Because you can't control the ambient light, you have to be in the right place at the right time, and the best method to make sure you get the shot is to continually take test shots as the light fades.
After determining your lighting, you're ready to focus on the composition. Composing your shot is all about perspective (refer to Chapter 8). Buildings provide interesting lines and shapes, so their immediate surroundings can and should work to enhance those lines and shapes. In many cases, you want to photograph buildings from a high angle. You can do so by bringing a ladder or by shooting from the roof or a high window in a neighboring building. High angles provide a sense of how the building fits into its surroundings and show its landscape, which also is a part of the overall story. A low angle most likely emphasizes how tall a structure is, but it doesn't provide the optimum amount of detail.
Balance, as a compositional quality, ensures that your viewers can comfortably view the entire frame of your composition without getting stuck in one area that's weighted too heavily. By paying attention to the shape of the building and how it fits into a rectangular frame, you can determine how much space to leave around the building and which surrounding elements to include in your composition. Make sure that the building you're shooting is large enough in the frame that viewers know it's the subject. However, also leave enough space around its edges so that viewers have some supporting elements to explore or negative space to guide their eyes around the edge of the subject. Chapter 12 provides more information on balance and space.
Figure 15-8 shows the exterior of a house in which the structure is framed by the trees surrounding it. This composition helps keep your eyes in the frame and coming back to the house itself. The columns are highlighted by the use of exterior lights and the soft light available at dusk.
