A Very Delicious Blog Post

Food photography can be quite simple if you have a beautiful subject. It took great willpower for me to wait to eat these until I was done with the photos but they were so pretty there was no way I was going to leave them un-photographed. Warning: don't read this post if you are trying to diet. This is a very delicious blog post.

I have admired pretty little macaroons like these in many other food photographer's portfolios and when I received them as a surprise Valentine's Day gift I knew I was going to have to take photos before I could eat them. There wasn't really any styling to be done - other than stacking them (which was not easy) and making sure that any imperfections were facing away from the camera.

I arranged these little guys a ton of different ways and shot them from several different angles before I felt that I was done. That was easy considering there were no hot lights to melt them and they weren't sticky or gooey. Besides, I knew when I was done I would eventually eat them and then I wouldn't have any more opportunities for photos.

One important aspect of food photography is showing the texture of the food. You can do this fairly easily with side lighting. The lighting setup for this photo was very simple. To be honest, I was tired and this was the easy way to do it. I try to keep my light simple anyway, and this is as simple as it gets. The cardboard on the left is a gray card and it's white on the side facing the macaroons.

To shoot this delicious blog post I used my Sigma 105mm f2.8 Macro lens. It's an excellent lens for capturing details and the focal length means I can shoot comfortably and get very close. Plus, it's got image stabilization which I seem to need more and more as I get older. Awesome.

So the next time you have a delicious and pretty treat you might want to try taking some pictures of it. That is, of course, if you have the willpower to wait. ;-) And FYI, they were DELICIOUS!