Photography & editing

The pressure was on me to capture the beauty and deliciousness of my mum’s and family’s incredible recipes! And quite a lot of pressure this was as we made a design decision to have a full bleed image for every recipe to make the cookbook visually interesting. This means having one image per recipe filling an entire page, resulting in 50% of the book being photography. At the start of the project I never knew how different food photography was to portrait photography. We could have hired a photographer to do this job, but I was up for a challenge and wanted to learn something new. I also wanted as much of the book to be completed by mum and I to make it that much more special.

Learning about the wonderful world of food photography

Being around mum’s cooking everyday was an added bonus as I could spend as long as I wanted taking photographs without worrying about time. We had a really clear vision for how we wanted the photos to look - vibrant, crisp and clean to compliment the design and the bright state of Gujarat in India. So I began researching and stumbled across Joanie’s channel on YouTube called The Bite Shot. I learnt SO much from her videos, and the great thing was that it felt like I was watching Netflix because she’s so entertaining to listen to and watch. Her YouTube channel focuses on food photography and has absolutely everything you need to know from making DIY backdrop boards, using manual settings of a DSLR camera, lighting, food styling, using Lightroom to edit photos - essentially the whole food photography journey. I even joined her food photography Facebook community, connecting with other keen food photographers across the globe to learn a tip or two from them too.

A key thing I learnt was that food photographers don’t generally take photos on their kitchen bench or dining table. I felt so oblivious to this! What was mind blowing was that they create a ‘scene’ with a whole heap of props and backdrop boards to make it look like they’re shooting on their normal table top. So believe it or not, I cleared out and used a bedroom for the photography, and avoided shooting on the dining table or kitchen bench. The bedroom I chose has a huge window on one side which provided the best lightning and shadows - both of which are crucial parts of photography. The room was also close to the kitchen for easy movement of food and props to make food styling easier.

Backdrop boards

Let’s talk about backdrop boards more. I want to emphasise how these boards make such a huge impact to the look of your photos. I certainly didn't realise how great they are, but as I started taking photos it soon became obvious why it’s such a critical part to create a ‘complete’ looking photograph. I made a few based off Joanie’s tutorial, and also freehanded some based on our overall vibrant look and feel of the cookbook. They’re super fun to make - I just grabbed a whole heap of different coloured paints, brushes and sponges and painted a range of subtle abstract designs with different textures, finishing them off with a few layers of matte protector spray to prevent reflections. Here’s what they look like:

Props

Props were another important part of the food photography puzzle, helping with food styling. Mum and I scanned the entire house, filling up a ‘prop box’ with everything we could use to help food style the images. After taking a heap of photos, I realised we needed more props and more variety with the massive 103 recipes in the book, so we were really lucky to borrow some off family and friends. I even took a visit to the op shop, and was so stoked with what I could pick up for a few dollars.

Clicking the camera button

Once the setup, props, and background boards were good to go, I could finally start clicking the camera button - and what a journey this was! I started using my phone camera, and reflecting back on this now, it was a terrible idea! I had just bought the latest iPhone which on the screen seemed to take crystal clear photos, but after realising that print resolution is about 60% lower than digital resolution, I had to scrap those photos and start over with a DSLR. I had no clue how to operate the fancy camera, so back I was watching Joanie’s YouTube tutorials on food photography foundations. After another round of cooking and photography, I thought I was doing really well until hearing some feedback that the photos are great, but could be better. To be honest, this was very heart dropping, but it had to be perfect, so round three it was. And poor mum, she had to cook a lot of the food all over again (sorry about that - but yay for extra extra extra tested recipes)! After a crash course from Caspian, a senior designer at work, I practiced and practiced until I got the hang of it. Finally after 3 rounds, I had great quality crystal clear photos perfect for printing in a book. So thank you to Caspian for your constructive feedback and photography knowledge!

Editing in Lightroom

Another part of the photography was Lightroom editing. This Adobe tool is magic! It’s so fun to use to process images, and really adds the finishing touch. After editing and individually giving each photo special attention, I finally had book worthy photos. Once again, Joanie’s Lightroom editing videos were a lifesaver with all of her tips and tricks for using the tool for food photography. I’d totally recommend this tool to anyone who wants to play around with photography editing software - and it’s not too hard to learn to use!

Selecting our photos

One of the final parts of the photography journey was choosing the photos for the book. Out of the 8,000+ photos I captured, we could only choose around 120 to be featured. It was really important that I took lots and lots of photos from all angles, with different backdrop boards and props so that we had different photos on social media and the website to the book. My idea here was to keep the book and social media channels visually interesting and a little different, while still looking on brand.

The finishing touches

After choosing the final photos, the finishing touches were made to resize and sharpen them to prepare them for print, before exporting them ready for the design stage. After a year of learning and going through the food photography journey, I’m so happy with the photos and seeing them next to mum’s delicious family recipes in a fully complete cookbook is truly special.  

Keryn Kalyan