Som Tam House, a boutique Thai restaurant in Shepherds Bush, commissioned me to provide some imagery for a new website. This is my first attempt at commercial food photography. Although I have shot a lot of food on a casual basis and watched a lot of professional food photography YouTubes.
Objective
In the wake of the coronavirus lockdown, restaurants, after having first been forced to close, were later allowed to operate in a restricted manner.
The owner of Som Tam lost his partner to Coronavirus very early in the pandemic. To help cope with this trauma and enforced closure, he set about reinvigorating the restaurant. An updated website and photos within it were part of this rebuilding.
Context of the Assignment
Images were shot over two sessions.
The first session, which at the time I thought would be the only session, used natural light as this seemed to be the method most preferred by YouTube food photography vloggers.
The second session occurred after I realised the shortcomings of the first approach.
Technically all shots were tethered to CaptureOne running on my MacBook Pro which enabled me to discuss images as they were shot with both the chef and restaurant owner. See my recent post: “Tethered Workflow using Capture One Pro (Sony)“.
First Session: Natural Light – Plan View
The day was overcast and it seemed like a good idea to shoot the food on a table by a big window at the front of the restaurant. Many tutorials I have watched seem to suggest this is a good idea as it creates nice defuse backlighting. A small reflector at the front to fill in shadows and a little pop of flash to produce sparkle of specular highlights.
Shooting the food from directly above provides the most detail.
However, problems with natural lighting when shooting include:
- Constantly changing light intensity as the sun goes behind a darker patch of cloud
- variations in colour tone and some directional variation
- random reflections from colourful traffic in the road.
Although I was shooting with completely manual settings, there was significant variation in the colour and tone of the pink table mat between shots. Capture One Pro has a facility to standardise colours between shots. This helped to some extend, but the mat is a texture rather than a solid colour. So not immediately a perfect solution.
The plan view provides very factual shots; the food is the overwhelmingly dominant feature of the image; looks enticing but lacks the context and atmosphere of the restaurant.
The more arty image below was originally just an attempt to include some of the flowers that had been purchased specifically for the shoot.
Second Session: Artificial Light – Contextual Background
Although the restaurant owner appeared pleased with the results from the first session, I was not, and managed to persuade him to give me a second chance. This time everything was artificially using my big Godox AD600 in an octabox softbox to provide the main side lighting from the left, and my V1(S) with a shoot-through umbrella to fill-in from front-right.
The above still life was created when I asked the chef for a plate of vegetables so that I could test the lighting. She somewhat excelled herself!
The image immediately above uses the same lighting as the test shot. The glasses have been filled with a 50% dilution of red wine/ water. Red wine on its own looks completely black in photographs. Most of the pictures on the back wall are a replacement for what were distracting reflections in large mirrors. I feel this adds a more classy, intimate feel.
Further Shoots: Restaurant Full of Customers
Now that the restaurant has reopened, I am due to return to take some interior images when it is full of customers. My intention is to use a long exposure to create a sense of activity and “buzz” and hiding the details of the individual diners.
These two photographs are shown as “mood board” images to the type of atmosphere I will be trying to create at Som Tam.
Image to the right was shot at f/9 ISO 200 with a 1.6 second exposure. Camera was hand held but braced against the railing of the first floor gallery.