In this video, we're going to explore food photography and my first attempt to go to a restaurant, a really awesome restaurant nearby to take some food photography. You're a beautiful person, you're a good person. If no one has told you that today, let me be the first one to tell you. And I've been inspired this year by a couple of chefs I've met. Chef Zach Gearson works at Citizens Kitchen in Hotel Fullerton and runs his own restaurant next door, Journeyman Food & Drink. And I've also met Chef Denine Green and she's a private chef to celebrities and travels the world preparing meals for people. And so I heard her give a talk at Creative Mornings Orange County and I've just been inspired by her approach to following her passion. So my hats off to them, follow them on Instagram, good people to follow if you're into culinary arts. And also I want to give a shout out and highly recommend the bite shot on YouTube. I've been on her videos all week before I went to take photos at Chef Zach Gearson's restaurant. And we came here on our anniversary and I talked to the chef and asked him if I could come in and practice some food photography. So I'm eager to learn on the job as it were and share some tips for food photography with you. Alright, let's go. Today I charmed my hand at food photography. Alright, so when I was inside the kitchen, I had access to two lines, the Journeyman line and the Citizens Kitchen line. And I kind of was positioned in this place where I was able to see to the left and to the right two different lines. So there was always something coming at me. It was really almost like being a sports photographer, just a lot of fast-paced action. And you can see the dish come at you as it was getting prepared. So I kind of line up my approach and as it was made more and more ready, hopefully by the final moment when the dish was prepared, I would have my exposure dialed in. I would have my lighting ideas, I would have my angle ideas. And so that kept me on my toes. So I didn't take a lot of photos of the people who are doing the prep work. I didn't really express permission to do that so I focused on the food. Because I didn't have the luxury of a traditional photo shoot, I didn't have the food set aside in a pristine environment and all the lights that I wanted. So I was working in their work environment. And so I came away with some tips and it really relates not just to food photography, but taking portraits or taking photos in a working environment. And so I want to share some of those with you. Know your environment in terms of light and be prepared with artificial light. I took my Godox V860 flash and I had this pancake diffuser. And so this allowed me pretty nimbly to get into small places such as the place where they serve it up to the servers and there's kind of like a heat lamp area while it sits there for seconds so I could get this in there. This diffuser was pretty nimble and allowed me to get into pretty tight spaces and it gave a pretty soft lighting result much more so than the artificial just a harsh flash without this artificial light. My pictures with a suffered greatly. So the artificial light I knew ahead of time we have fluorescent lights and it's a kitchen and it's a working environment. So I'm not going to have the beautiful natural light from the outside. There's no windows. And so I had to know my environment and bring the artificial light. So that also means I had to be prepared with the trigger. And so this is my T5i. I have the trigger on here just for a sample. But so the trigger saying the signal to this and I just held this in my left hand. And this actually worked great very nimble and lightweight and I was able to get in and out and move around. So that was a great set up. So no your environment spatially. So be prepared to move in and out and get the right composition of the shot. But also be prepared to do that quickly and not trip over objects or furniture or back into people. Actually, chef Zach Gerson said, you know, if you come around a corner, say corner if you're going behind somebody, say behind. So people have a heads up. And then know your equipment. Know what's going to get you the best results. I didn't have the luxury of changing lenses all the time. So I stuck with my 35 millimeter RF lens. And that allowed me most of the angles that I wanted most of the time. I did switch to the 10 to 18 a little bit. I tried the 85 millimeter. And what I found is the 85 is a beast of a lens, meaning it's heavy. And so when I was trying to get overhead shots and have the flash, I was really limited. Really limited my ability to sustain the weight of that lens and work in the environment that I wanted. I did have an office space where I could touch some gear. And so I worked with that and ran back there a couple times to make some swaps of lenses and lights. I do have a tip specifically for food photography and it relates to what Matthew Jordan Smith calls every image has a hero or every image needs a hero. And that is if you are taking a picture of a salmon dish, you know you have to get the exposure right on that salmon meat. You need the distinct pink of that salmon colored a pop. That's what you're thinking about in terms of composition and focus in terms of exposure. But let's say you have a salad and the salad has a variety of agreements or like I shot a bowl that had shrimp and had some nuts and had some other ingredients. But the diversity of ingredients in the dish and the fact that it wasn't clear because of the brown sauce that the shrimp were the main players. I had to kind of decide and it was more subjective than a human portrait. That's what I found is because what the human portrait we know the focal point is the eyes and if the eyes are sharp and clear. That leads us into the mood, the emotion and the tone of the whole photograph, the whole story we're telling. But in food photography, there's a lot more ingredients and there's not necessarily going to be a dominant subject. So you have to interpret that and you have to decide ahead of time. So that gives you a couple of kind of thoughts going into this. Know the ingredients, ask the chef, know what's being prepared that day. So we had this dish we were taking a picture of salmon and I saw sprinkled around it these brightly colored bits of what I thought were a hittuna. When we went back to the restaurant the next night and my wife ordered that, I actually found out they're grapefruit. And so that's important to know the ingredients, know what they are in terms of composition and whether they play a main role in the story of the photo. But also in color grading, that's super important as well. So for example, there was a dessert and so this dessert was sort of like a chocolate moose, a chocolate dessert. But they didn't have some fine details on it and I chose to make those the hero of the image. There's some orange curly cues on the top and chef, you could probably give me the right language for that. And also some tiny, tiny flower blossoms on the top of that. So I figured the chocolate nature of the dessert was a given it was understood. I could use depth of field and kind of blur that out and draw attention with focus and exposure to the orange curly cues and the tiny flowers. And I actually tried a variety of very beautiful dessert and I tried a variety of lighting arrangements and compositions to try to capture the unique nature of this dish. So in summary, I just want to say express thank you to the people who are out there inspiring us with the grapefruit photography. I highly recommend following Ann Watson photography on Instagram. When I moved to Orange County, I started following her and I've been following her journey for years. And I went back this weekend took a look at some of her food photography photos and they're absolutely inspirational. So you have to follow her if you're into the food photography scene. Ann Watson photography, I want to thank the bite shot. I want to thank Chef Zach Geerson and Chef Dening Green. Follow them. So it was really enjoyable. I want to go back and do it again. I have some more thoughts about how to use depth of field. I think that was one area I could improve on is my depth of field. I wasn't necessarily locked in on what the hero of that image was because I was shooting with a shallow depth of field. So I probably make that depth of field a little more broad and try to get everything more crisp and then use the composition to tell an interesting story. So those are just some thoughts reflecting back on this experience, which was a great, great experience. As always, like and subscribe, click those links below and give me a thumbs up, ring the bell when you subscribe. So you get notifications. I would love to go on this journey with you and hear your questions and your experiences with photography. Thanks. you