BlogHer Food: Visual Track: Developing your Visual Voice

I'm here at BlogHer Food and I'm going to do modified live blogging this time, just sharing the most interesting aspects of the sessions I attend that way I'll stay more sane than I was in Chicago and keep my posts more interesting. Please give me feedback throughout the day so I can make any changes needed to my coverage of the conference.

Presenters: Matt Armendariz from Matt Bites and Heidi Swanson from 101 Cookbooks.

Heidi: People that have blogs spend a lot of time working on their writing style, but not as much on developing things visually.
Matt: We spend so much time making food, writing recipes, but there are lots of things you should think about before you pick up the camera.

Matt: I started taking pictures for my blog and now do some advertising photography and editorial work. Here is a sample of my work. All recent shots.
Heidi: I primarily shoot for my site and my cookbooks. HEre are some shots from my last book. I shoot my day to day life. I often have a camera when I travel, many shots never see the light of day. It's something I love to do and have been doing for years.

Heidi:"We're going to start off by showing how different photographers would approach the same subject."

Heirloom Tomatoes:
Jason Lo Shot: metallic sheen to tomatoes very
Molly from l'Orangette - polaroid
Andrea Fezzari - shoots for Gourmet, T&L, Vanity Fair - one side of the color wheel - very warm colors - centrally located.
With a few changes and tweaks you can dramatically change the way a shot feels.

Seven Things to Think about Before you pick up a camera:

1. Be inspired by others. Keep a scrapbook of pictures that you love, a visual journal. You can do this on paper or digitally. Once you have a body of clips that move you, then you can start of getting a sense of where you want to head with your own photography. It's hard to get a sense of what moves you in a certain shot.
   
2. Time of Day. Matt - my favorite times to shoot are early in the morning or late in the day to get soft natural light.
3. Indoor vs. Outdoor - the difference is huge.
4. Minimalist vs. Dense.
5. Black and White vs. Color. Heidi: I'm not aware of any food blogs that shoot in black and white and I love that medium.
6. Dark vs. Light. You can communicate something just through the light.
7. People. Do your shots have people or just body parts or no people at all.
8. Flash or no Flash. Flash can be exciting and give a different esthetic.

Heidi: Consider your site design when choosing the orientation of your images.

Understand Where you are Shooting - Heidi shows how she shoots in her living room, her white curtains act as a giant light box and moves around the room depending on where the light is best at different parts of the day.

Vegan Yum Yum - has a great post on how she sets up for photography. Great post worth looking up.

Heidi: "A lot of people ask me about how to shoot in a dark restaurant. I open up the lens as much as I can, lean against a wall to stabilize myself." Matt:" I don't beat myself too much about it. It's hard and it is what it is."

Farmer's market: Heidi: "another very challenging medium. I try to go very early. I will try to chat with whomever I'm going to shoot and make sure it's okay. If I want or need to move the food into better light, I'll try to do that."

Think about the types of shots you are after. Matt, "For me a lot of the magic happens during the process."

There is a spectrum of types of shots:

1. Ingredient Shots.
2. In process shots. You can see the preparation of the ingredients. It is educational and you can communicate textures and shapes. The Pioneer Woman is the queen of in process shots.
3. Ready to Eat Shots. Shot from the Diner Journal - great local publication in NY.
4. The aftermath shot - dishes in the sink.
5. People shots - quincenera - woman working in ice cream parlor.
6. In Motion Action Shot - Matt, "You might need to recruit people to help you. but there are so many beautiful moments to capture." Action shot in Smitten Kitchen of blades swirling.
7. Eye Level - Drinks shot
8. From the Side - Shot through a window at a bakery

Plan Your Workflow

1. What type of food you're shooting, how it's going to react. Need to have all these things ready before I make the food or the food might fall as we're setting up.
2. Get organized. Have a sense of what you want to accomplish.
3. Mental checklist: ingredients on hand, batteries charged, pick location, set aside plates, prep ingredients, flash card on hand, prep ingredients, do in-process shots, cook, plate, fuss a bit, shoot, EAT, and then transfer to computer. HEIDI says, "I don't do much post production.

Look through the viewfinder. Really Look. Really take the time to compose and to look at it as a complete photo.

Look at your shadows.

Keep an eye out for blow outs - overly white pics.

Other things to look for: background (avoid visual noise), look at your edges, compose the entire frame.

Read the camera manual cover to cover. You want to get to know your camera. the point and shoots are capable of stunning visual images but you do have to take the time to get to know your camera. It's just like learning how to play an instrument. You need to get literate on how to use it. Don't be afraid of the technical aspects of your camera.

When you have a sense of what you want your images to look like, then you can start chipping away at the technical things that are frustrating you.

Questions:
Alice, "A lot of times when people are trying to come up with composition of their shots, people suggest really close and really tight. I have focus issues. I see some pictures are side by side. Is the technique close up and then far back?"
Matt: "If I'm trying to shoot people about to sit down to table and I shoot really close up, then I lose the context, the about to eat. Really think about what you are trying to communicate."

Question: "I love your textures, tables and dishes. Where do you get them?"
Heidi, "I'm embarrassed to admit that I have pulled things off the curb. I look everywhere for things I want to bring home. Tables, fabrics, textures... I always have my eyes open. If I bring something home it becomes part of my daily life. I have a little prop cupboard but it's mostly what I end up eating with."
Matt: "I have a bit of a prop room. My tomato shot is not slate. It's actually paper underneath. My point is that you can use anything. Many of my shots are done on my cement floor. Use everything."

Question: "how do you make those meaty casseroles look good."
Matt: "It's very hard. There are tricks with light to deal with meat. By the time something has stewed it's hard to get it to look pretty. It's really very difficult."

Question: "Are there any no-nos that you never want to see in a picture?"
Matt: "In photoshot I look to see if there are any values in the white space, the RGB. If there are no values, then that means I've overshot my image."
Heidi: "In certain cameras or programs, they will tell you that you have blow outs. I think you want to maintain some detail in the highlights and the shadows."

"Are there any times that you make recipes and they don't turn out as well as you wanted them to be?"
Heidi, "Oh yeah. there are many things that I shoot and they don't come out well so i don't write about it at all. But if your site has a different energy and you're comfortable with that, then you should do what you're comfortable with it."

"My cooking habits have changed because I know what I want my shots to look like."
Heidi, "If I'm working on a cookbook, I've probably cooked each recipe 5 or 6 times before I shoot it. So I've really already enjoyed it before I shoot it."

Heidi, "I try to get as close to the final image in camera as possible. If you can get a good shot in camera, you're in a much better place moving forward."

"My kitchen is black granite. Do you have any suggestions to capture things in process in real world kitchens for those of us who have to shoot what we're cooking?"
Matt: "With a dark kitchen, I would suggest an oversized cutting board that you can shoot on. Or pieces of foam core paper that you can stash. That way you're not really modifying, you're living and eating, but you can still shoot it."
Heidi, "If I know I'm going to shoot late at night, I'll make extra to shoot the next morning. I typically shoot in the 7 to 8 minutes when something comes out of the oven. I don't obsess."

"I have a tough time organizing my shots and never know which one to keep."
Heidi, "I shoot economically. I might come to the computer with 30 shots. I pick the 7 I like, I move them to a folder and I delete the rest."
Matt: "I shoot tons and I keep everything. It's a headache but it's my workflow."

"I have talked to many photographers about the storage issue. Redundancy is key."
Heidi, "I use time machine. Everything is backed up on different files. If I'm working on a big project, I'll mail disks to people."

"My name is Courtney, I write the cookie blog. I often bring a point and shoot because it's easier. What's the way to get the best out of it?"
Heidi, "Move out of the green square mode."
Matt: "I look for the point and shoots where I can control a lot of stuff."
Heidi, "I shoot in AV mode where I can control the aperture and the shutter speed. Getting out of the green square is the first big step and you can figure it out by READING THE MANUAL!"

"Can you speak about your photoshopping and retouching?"
Heidi, "I don't do much. I don't crop. I try to capture in camera exactly the frame I want to use."
Matt: "I crop a lot. For a blog post I'm frustrated that the frame size takes up so much of the post. But that's really about it. White balance or sharpening if I have to contrast."

"I'm Cheryl Rule from FiveSecondRule. Can you recommend a book for dense to get a sense for what's going on in the field?"
Heidi, "Go to museums and see what other photographers are doing. Request rare library books that cost hundreds of dollars to browse. Find a couple of photographers that you like and dive deeper into their work."
Matt: "As you're looking, don't limit yourself to a photo book. The same principles apply to all visual arts. They're all related. Proportion. Positive and negative."

Any recommendations on point and shoot cameras?
Matt: "I love the Canon G9 (10 or 11) because you can shoot raw files which are a lot easier to open up in photoshop."

"Can you talk about raw"
Matt: "Raw files are slower and bigger files."
Heidi, "If you need to go to print, it's great to have a raw file."

My question "How much time do you spend worrying about image theft? And what do you do to protect yourself."
Matt: "I don't worry about it. I take so many pictures that it's bound to happen. I don't watermark because I think it takes away from the picture."
Heidi, "I don't either. Theft bums me out. Recipes and pics get stolen but you can't do much about it. I should be more vigilant about it, but I'm not."

"Jaden from Steamy Kitchen as a great post about box lights that you can get for when the daylight is short."
Heidi, "I feel like Deb from Smitten Kitchen might often shoot with speedlight. She might have a post about that."

"I'm Shauna from Gluten Free Kitchen. I have a Nikon instead of a Canon. What would you use if you had to pick just one lens."
Matt: "I like a macro lens"
Heidi: "I use a 50MM."

"Any more advice on shooting meat."
Matt: "Make sure you get a highlight on the surface. Sometimes put a paper towel under the surface. Get everything ready and shoot fast."

Tips to shoot brown:
Matt & Heidi: "Break up the surface. Add olive oil as it will drift in the crevices. Think about what can go with the dish."