How to shoot hotel dishes with lights

How to shoot dishes/recipes! I hope I can help you. First, the basic lighting requirements Even experienced photographers will admit that it is not easy to shoot delicious food. Although food does not have rich expressions like people or animals, it also has "life". If you can't master the "temperature" of shooting, popular food will completely turn people off. The difficulty of photographing food comes from two aspects: first, how to express the texture of food, such as soft, crisp, delicate, plump and greasy. Second, how to highlight the freshness, delicacy, hygiene and beauty of food, which makes people salivate and make their forefinger move. The former is mainly about the arrangement of light, while the latter is also related to manipulation, props and background. For foods with rough texture, such as cut bread and cakes, the light should be soft and directional, so use soft masks and honeycomb covers. For vegetables and fruits, due to irregular shape, it is easy to produce projection, so it is more common to use scattered light. For some foods with greasy surfaces, such as cooked food, braised or smoked meat and poultry, the lighting should not be too realistic. General light can only darken food and make it unattractive, so it is very important to be surprisingly flat when lighting. Special attention should be paid to the lighting on the main body. The light should be transparent and slightly rigid. Light doesn't have to illuminate food from the front or above. You can try to use partial main lights and personalized auxiliary lights. If you shoot food with certain light transmittance, such as vegetables, slices, jelly, drinks, etc. The intensity and flexibility of light should be skillfully combined, and it is very important to properly use contour light and backlight to express the attraction of the subject. Most photos of food pursue the normal restoration of color, especially those of cold dishes, western snacks and fast food, but sometimes warm light is used, such as fried food and baked flour products. Golden color means that food is fresh, crisp and soft. Second, special techniques In order to maintain the delicious taste of food, you can also spray or smear some special liquids on food, or inject some substances into food to maintain its color, surface texture and fresh appearance. The most typical example is when shooting fruit, coating a thin layer of oil on the surface of the fruit, and then spraying water mist, which will make the fruit have a delicious and crystal-clear effect, and then it will really make people covet through side light irradiation. Specifically, first pour a few drops of glycerin on your palm. Rub your hands, then take the fruit in your hand and rub it with your palm. Generally, after applying a layer of glycerin, put the fruit in a bowl and put it neatly according to your own imagination. Then, take a plastic spray bottle filled with water and carefully spray the water on the fruit. In this way, a layer of crystal water drops appeared on the fruit, which achieved the ideal effect. Need to be reminded that when using the spray bottle, you must pay attention to the surrounding astigmatism lights. Turn off all the lights nearby before spraying water, and then turn on the lights when you are ready to take pictures. In addition, when spraying water, other places should be covered, because if the bowl and seamless paper are sprayed with water, the whole image effect will be destroyed. Don't put too much oil on the fruit, or the surface of the fruit will give off unnatural light, just put a thin layer of oil on it. If you want to show the calories of food, you can handle it flexibly according to different foods. In order to enhance the steaming effect of general food, you can find a thin blowpipe, such as a straw for smoking, take a sip of cigarette smoke in your mouth, aim the straw at the inside of the food being photographed, forcibly eject a puff of smoke, and leave quickly. When the smoke rises to the best state, press the shutter in time. Note that in order to make the above smoke effect more obvious in the picture, it is best to use backlight or backlight when lighting, and choose a dark background, where the smoke will curl up and make people daydream. Of course, this is a way of advertising photography, and we don't need this fake thing! When shooting vegetables, in order to show the fresh and tender texture of vegetables, it is advisable to soak vegetables in alkaline water in advance, so that vegetables can get a bright green texture. However, when some foods may change their original state as soon as they are served, they have to take a special way to make some fake foods by simulating the shape and texture of dishes with some artificial materials to restore the best state of food. The most typical example is patting ice cubes. No matter how fast you are, the ice will melt faster than you think under the light. Therefore, when shooting ice cubes or food with ice cubes, you can get quite realistic results by choosing an ice cube specially carved with plexiglass. Shooting cut apples should be soaked in salt water or lemonade to avoid discoloration after long exposure to the air. When shooting cooked meat and fish food, you can apply a layer of refined cooking oil before shooting to make the food look particularly fresh. The composition of food shooting can only be used for reference, because all the atmosphere and effects can only be reflected after the food is ready. Then improvise and make some local adjustments to make it as close as possible to the original idea. Just like cooking! It can be simple or complicated! Just pursuing different things! Of course, after understanding the basic composition method, you can change it according to different environments and conditions!