Stock – Food Photography

A New York Cheesecake I baked for this Christmas. I shot this in my small stills area in my garage.

I think I probably developed my interest in photographing food whilst working as a wedding photographer. Small detail shots, such as flowers, guests favours, drinks and food are all part of a wedding and therefore had to be recorded by me, the wedding photographer.

After I finished shooting weddings I always enjoyed taking the odd pic of a cake or coffee we might have bought when we were out and about. Fast forward to 2020 and the pandemic lockdown when we were forced to stay indoors and were unable to travel. I needed to find something to photograph to feed my stock portfolio, so I decided to get a bit more serious about shooting food images.

The roots of my fondness for food photography probably lie in my wedding photography work

To that end I bought more than a few ‘How To’ photograph food books. Some were better than others but I took a little bit of knowledge from them all and improved upon what I had been doing.

The next problem was having food to photograph. Linda, my wife, is a really good cook, but wasn’t really up for cooking a meal for me to photograph and then throw away. Trying to grab a few pics of something she had just cooked for us to eat didn’t work either, so I decided I would concentrate on photographing cakes or anything baking related. I thought I could bake a bit or buy the odd cake to photograph.

A rare example of a food image, from our home kitchen, that isn’t a cake. It’s bolognaise served on courgetti (zucchini noodles) and spaghetti. Everything was set up so that we could photograph the food and eat it whilst it was still hot.

What happened next was that I really got into baking. I love it. In fact in some ways it’s flipped the other way, with me enjoying a new baking challenge and not really being too bothered whether what I’m making is good for a pic, although it usually is.

I started with simple traditional English bakes like Rock Cakes, Scones (Biscuits in the US), Lemon Drizzle Cakes and other simple sponges. From there I’m now happy taking on most things, although I’m not an intuitive baker and rely on recipes I find online or from the mountain of baking books I now own.

My baking start point; simple bakes. Scones and Brownies.

What I also now own is a large collection of props for my images. From cups, plates, cutlery, backdrops (mostly large sheets of coloured card), work surfaces etc, etc, etc. These days I have an area in my garage I use for shooting food and stills. If I’m working in there I usually use a really simple light setup with one flash head, shot through a soft box, opposite a white reflector. I do also shoot using natural light from time to time but we have no North facing windows in our home and here, in the UK, the natural light without that isn’t to good.

Images shot with natural light. The jam is shot into early morning sun with some fill flash from the front. The peanut butter cake was a bake I made and took away with us on a family holiday. I had to make do as I had no lighting equipment with me.

Equipment wise, for lighting, I use a Godox 200 Pro which I really like. It’s more than powerful enough for my needs and I can control it with a Godox transmitter which sits on top my Fujifilm X-T5. I like to work handheld rather than using a tripod although I do use one from time to time. The bolognaise shots above would have been shot using a tripod so I could switch food in to the same setup.

The important question is do the images sell. Yes they do. I find the more traditional bakes sell the best. Images of Rock Cakes and Scones do well. The peanut butter cake image above has sold several times as have my cheesecake images.

I was notified by Alamy today that this image had just sold. It was a meal I was about to eat in a Fish and Chip restaurant whilst we were on holiday last year.

I’m still enjoying my baking and still photographing my efforts. I follow several great food photographers on Instagram for inspiration and there’s always something new to learn.