Food Photography for Catering Company

Here’s a recent food photo I did for a local catering company.  The headline to the ad has something to do with “Uncommon” food, so I needed to produce something a little out of the ordinary.  The Chef did a great job in coming up with some unusual food dishes, of which, you’ll be seeing more of in the near future.  If you live in Pittsburgh, you’ll be seeing these around town as billboards, ads, and bus stop posters.
We actually shot this as a rather extreme horizontal, but I decided to crop it into a square for a better composition for the sake of my food photography blog post here.  Clients always want to “shoot loose” so that they have the freedom to crop the way they want to later.  While I can understand this, I know that the romance feeling of the limited depth of field, suffers because of this.  I try to talk clients out of this when I can, but I don’t always win that war.  And that’s okay.  It’s their nickel, and I’m there to serve their needs, not mine.  So I make the point, push a little and then, in the end, I give the client the food photo they want.   Lately what I’ve been doing is shooting the way the client wants and then, I move in to where I want it.  That’s a win-win, and I give the client both photos and that way they can use whichever photo best suits their  needs.

Image Title: Purple Cabbage
Client: Common Plea Catering
Camera / Digital Back: Arca Swiss 6×9 View Camera with Phase One P45+ Digital Back
Lens: 300 mm Schneider Kreuznach
Shutter Speed: 1/125th second
Aperture: f 8
Lighting Equipment: Norman strobes with Chimera soft boxes
Main Light Source: Norman 10″ fresnel spot

What I really like about this Food Photography:  I guess what I like most about this photo is the warm, dark color pallet, the use of limited depth of field.  I think the lighting does a good job of adding shape to the cabbage.  I think the shot does a good job of illustrating, in a food photo, the ad’s message of “uncommon food”.