Photographing Food

I was recently asked to help a friend with some food photography for her catering business.
She was catering for a large all day function and wanted to get some shots for her website that her husband was putting together for her.
Here are a few shots from the shoot and some others.
Over the years I have done some food photography and it really is quite easy for a photographer.
The art is in the different angles,the colour,the simplicity of presentation,the ability to show of something that will make your mouth water.
You will notice that if you look at cooking book photography there is a lot of each picture that is not in focus.
With food if you were doing it for a top shelf cooking book you would have a food stylist and all the food in it's raw state would be hand selected from markets.
If you are a wedding photographer sometimes you will be requested to concentrate on the food dishes as quite often young couples are foodies.
So weddings are a good place to learn food photography or practice it even if you are a guest.
If you are at a restaurant and you love the presentation before you photograph it with your iPhone or compact digital camera.
If you have a chef or keen amateur cook in the family it would be a good exercise to have them prepare some food so you can do a portfolio.
With the ability to print photo books these days it would not be hard to produce your own recipe book.

A Church catered Wedding Breakfast

Starters at  Kangaroo island

fruit is always colourful

From recent shoot

Catching Yabbies.

Yabbies!  Yabbies are a small freshwater crayfish that are found in the creeks and rivers of Australia.There are other freshwater lobsters that are a lot larger but harder to find now.There is also a mid way freshwater crayfish called Marron.Yabbies are what we love to get usually in the warm weather in Australia around Christmas time. When there has been some flooding is when the  yabbies "run" Yabbies can lie dormant in mud below the surface for several years in times of drought.We  cook them by boiling in a "billy" or saucepan and they are delicious with shredded lettuce, mayonaise and fresh bread and butter.They can be caught in nets from a boat or the riverbank. The nets are baited with meat or fish heads or you can even use a cake of soap.. A popular method for kids in days gone by has been to dangle a piece of meat on a string on a stick in the water and then when the you see the yabbies in the water( if it is clear enough) approaching the meat you yo have a dab net at ready to scoop them out. Usually you only catch one  at a time in that method. In  a net you may get up to 10 if you are lucky.

The piece of string method