Hey all,

I'm a student in the northern, VA and have tons of free time! First thing I need to do is build a food portfolio since I want this to be my niche in the micro stock industry (with some portraits on the side). Any advice on how to do this? Calling restaurant and offering my services for free hasn't worked to well since I have very little to show them. What would be the best way to build up a portfolio? Once I've built the portfolio how should I go about getting opportunities for photo shoot? I was thinking of just visiting restaurants and setting up a time in the near future to photograph food, as one member suggested in another post. What props should be used/buy? How should I use my lighting? I currently own two Lowel EGO light which work great for shooting isolated objects on a white background! I have a white mini background that work nice, but also own two 1000 watt contentious light systems with soft boxes. Thanks in advance I know I've asked a lot of questions!

Don't go for too shallow DOF... lots of sites don't like them.
Patrick H.

Forget about shooting food! That's my niche, and you can't have it! (just kidding)
 
Try going to prophotolife.com and do a search for "food". Excellent website for learning about lighting and table top photo shoots. Don't just think about food. Once you've mastered the food niche, you'll find you can use the same lighting for everyday items, that no one has thought of, yet. I always go for a broad depth of field. Everything in sharp focus, front to back. That usually means taking multiple shots, at different focus points, and a lot of post production, in Photoshop. But, that's my thing. You can make it as complicated as you want. Think in terms of " What can I offer, that no one else is doing?" That's your real creative niche. Good luck!

Hi Klapamos,

 I just posted this on another link but I wanted to make sure you saw it. It has become confusing around here as of late and I just want to make sure I didn't miss you on this one. It;s not much but here ya go.

 I have so little info on shooting food to share it has never been my specialty. I had a couple of bread companies and a beer company for clients 15 years ago and the only main rule of thumb I use is my main is back and usually a soft source to wrap the food unless the sauce is to reflective add a fill light to the front to soften the shadows down quite a bit ( also a soft source at camera angle ) and then try a hard accent light from the front or back corner just wracking the top of your subject to give it some sparkle and maybe warm up the highlights with a soft amber gel. Lighting beer is a whole different process using reflective cards placed behind the beer glasses with grid spots kicked into them to add the right amount of light to your beer to get the correct color of the product.
 Watch out for to short a depth of field and keep the background inviting but simple so it does not compete with the subject. I find satin table clothes with a bit of curl and a cloth napkin or water glass and silver are often enough for something fancy.   
 There are some good books on how to make food look good with extra tips and tricks. A lot of times the food on the plate is not edible because it has been charred on the outside but still raw inside or they have added glycerin to something with a brush to make it shine a bit more. Good food shooting has a learning curve but it can become a successful career if approached seriously. School is an excellent option for such a career.

Good Luck,
AVAVA

Hi Klapamos,

 I keep posting this in the wrong place it seems to be a subject on two different posts, my bad. Here is another option for you.

 If you have a large college near by I bet they have a culinary school and the students like to have their work shot for their portfolios. That might be another way to gain access to some great food styling and only have to concentrate on the lighting and composition. As if that isn't enough in itself. Just a thought you might give it a shot.

Best,
AVAVA

Quote from: Klapamos on January 29, 2009, 23:02

I'm a student in the northern, VA and have tons of free time! <snip>

I'm probably showing my ages, but how can an university student have lots of time?  It would seem to me that if that is the case, you should study more or take more classes.  Or am I just showing my age?

In any event, Klapamos, getting started in anything like this is not ease -- I know, I'm in that same position.  Have you considered looking on your campus itself?  Do they have any culinary classes?  Perhaps there is a fellow student into cooking that would like to work with you so he can get some shots of his creations.  Might even be a good way to meet girls.  Now there a great way for a college student to fill his spare time 

Yep you are probably showing your age

When I was at uni, which now seems like quite a long time ago, I had enough spare time to work full time in addition to studying. If I was back in the same position, I'd probably rather have been doing photography part time. Taking photos of other college students, with or without their cooking sounds like a much better way of meeting girls than shooting food at restaurants...

Read books, research the web, buy a camera, buy food, shoot. These should be right up a student's alley!

I'm a web developer first and stock photographer part-time (which works out very well together!), so I have an idea for you. Contact some web developers in your area and offer to shoot for some of their restaurant clients (existing or upcoming) for them at little or no cost to them. I know that my restaurant clients as a web developer all love getting the free photo shoot and using photos of their own food on their website and it has enlarged my food portfolio greatly. In addition, I also end up with great looking backdrops for the plates, rather than just isolated on white. I also bring a light tent to shoot the same plates isolated, so I get at least 2 photos per plate! Good luck!