Try food photography!
If you thought portraiture was difficult, think about how perishable hot foods are. When you photograph it, you’ll want it looking fresh, happy, steaming, and appetising. A normal photo shoot – where you photographs something to perfection – takes a few hours, but the food will only remain good-looking for about 10 minutes at the most.
So what do you do? God knows, I’ve never tried. But my new friend L over at Still Life With laid down the gauntlet…
This month, I got inspired by Chez Pim’s post a week ago about “the ugliest food photo ever.” It’s stunning that a professional actually published this photo of Tuna Tartare in the New York Times, taking what sounds like a decent recipe and making it look just awful.
Of course, because this was a food article in the NYT, it also included a recipe. The challenge is obvious: Make the food (see, I knew there would be a DIY element to this, even though it is a food DIY rather than a photography DIY), and then take a photo that doesn’t look disgusting.
Read the challenge over at L’s blog, and then get cracking! If you get any good results, tell her, and me too!
My day job, if it can be called that, is being a writer. I've got one book out there so far and it's awesome, so go ahead and buy a copy! It's available from 
In front of you, five hyperactive men with guitars, drums, and microphones. Behind you, five thousand fans. In your hands, a camera... You're going to need more than just a little bit of good luck to pull this one off. That's where this book comes in.
Take a Canon EOS 450D. Attach a Canon 50mm f/1.4 lens. Hit the streets of London. See what happens.
Insights, suggestions and comments
I do my own salad recipes, assemble and photograph them. They are a little different and the theme os local South African with colonial and indigenous African influences and a connection with we had with the Eastern trade routes, so what we have is an African / Eastern fusion of nutty flavors, exciting textures and the spicy aromatic ingredients that make Eastern foods such a taste bud sensation.
I constantly have a need to cover costs and would like to know if there’s a market for these pictures and who I should approach.
Regards
Derek
Cape Town
South Africa
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