Food, glorious food.

I feel like I've reached a stage in my photography where I am comfortable with myself. I feel consistent. I know and understand my camera. I know how to get a great shot. (Okay, I get lucky a lot too :}). Above all, I'm having the time of my life! But I'm also excited about how much I can still learn. And I spend a lot of time seeking out opportunities to gain more and more know-how. Of course, one of my favorite ways to pick up information is in the comfort of my own office, in my pjs, just browsing through the unbelievable WEALTH of knowledge that is to be found on the internet. Truly, it's amazing.

On my mind yesterday was the subject of FOOD PHOTOGRAPHY. As I mentioned, I have a true love for St. Patrick's Day. (Seriously, I don't know why. I'm not Irish. I think it's because I just love anything with a "theme". You can always count on me for theme birthday parties, theme christmas gifts ... I love coordinating things. And how simple is it to have fun with the theme of GREEN?!)

We had an all-out green dinner on March 17th:

Spinach-cheese tortellini
Green salad with cucumbers, green peppers, and Green Goddess salad dressing
Green apples, pears, and grapes
Limeade
and Oreos with green centers. (Which I am now addicted to, because they taste just like Thin Mints).

And we had some garlic bread (but it was not green) on the side.

And so, of course, I decided I needed to take pictures of our green food. And off to the internet I went to get some tips ... and found these five posts which are all fabulous reads:

Alexis Miller
Photography 365
Scott Kelby
The Pioneer Woman
Vegan Yum Yum (Thanks to Go{4}Pro for initially leading me to this post!)

Then it was into the kitchen to try out what I learned:




Of course, right away I broke the cardinal rule of food photography, which is to use natural lighting. But it was already close to 6pm when I decided to take these pictures ... and I really didn't want to see the look on my husband's face if I attempted to take all of the food outside ... so I went for some off-camera flash. I set up two speedlights, one in each corner of the kitchen and bounced them both off of the ceiling. That at least diffused the light and made for a more natural look.

I also opted for plain and simple ... hence the white background, which was really just two big pieces of foam board. I really should have taken a pull-back picture, so you could see what the set-up looked like. But then you would have all seen the mess I made of my kitchen just creating the meal in the first place :).

And yes ... on occasion I have been accused of going overboard when it comes to holidays ... like when I decided to make the kids these individual bags of candy that I put at each of their plates. It actually didn't take very much time at all to whip up some labels and stick the candy in bags. And the kids thought they were great. Okay, except for the laffy taffy which turned out to be rock-hard ...

Anyway, it was a fun experiment in food photography, one which I will definitely have to repeat again sometime!

And now ... I think I need ... an Oreo ...