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Plating

Lennard__34626

Can anyone teach me how to pull sauces like the ones in the photo? They're quite similar to the ones I've seen in the EMP cookbook and I've never been able to replicate them at home. If there are any general plating tips, I'd love to hear them as well

One that I can contribute from the little time I've spent in a French kitchen is to plate with odd numbers as opposed to even numbers, I've asked the reason for this but they haven't been able to tell me. A google search seems to indicate that even numbers tend to make the viewer try to segment the dish into symmetrical halves and symmetry is 'boring'

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com-chefsteps

I'd also say that this kind of saucing could really use a video showing not just the technique, but also the thickness of the sauce - in fact, I'd love to see a serious photo/video grid demoing plating possibilities for different thicknesses, like so...

1 axis: thickness

broth
oil
stock
velouté
thick bechamel
veg puree
ice cream
buttercream
firm custard

2nd axis: best bets for plating

pour-under
pour-over
drizzle
scrape with putty knife
spoon - dollop
spoon - dollop and drag
quenelle/rocher
scoop
mold

y'all get the idea, right?

com-chefsteps

delete (formatting is hard)

com-chefsteps

@Thaddeus, I agree with @Brendan Lee about the thickness.

It really helped me to spend an hour playing with several sauces of differing thickness. I bought some ultra-tex 8, put a couple of cups of fruit juice in the blender, run it, and add a little of the thickener. Reserve a quarter cup to play with, then add more thickener, reserve a quarter cup, add thickener, etc. so you end up with six or eight different thicknesses for five minutes of work. Then play with them.

Brendan_Lee_56950

The trick to those circular swirls is having the right consistency in the sauce. I find that the thicker the better for that particular style. I also like to use smaller spoons for that, multiple passes with a smaller spoon gives you the thinner lines. I kind of like the inherent messiness of it

Thaddeus_37740

Anyone familiar with the way the sauce is plated on this Noma dish??

http://insidescoopsf.sfgate.com/files/2013/11/NR-097-water-pike.jpg

I've tried to replicate it but it always looks messy and unlike the way they do it at Noma. I'm hoping someone here could kindly share some tips or videos with me on how this is done:)

stretch.com

I was having a look at some of the posts in this thread on lighting although I am not a professional photographer,

Funny colours?

I have used colour filters in my photography. Here is all you need to know from Leefilters

http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLFE0C670B749D90E9

Brendan_Lee_56950

Exactly why I post-process. I just have the camera beside the table, snap a few different shots from the angles I want and then I can worry about the exposure later. Happy wife, full belly, world is safe.

matthew.snyder77

Controlling light is really the essence of photography. Consequently, I would say the single biggest thing people can do to improve their food photography is to make sure they have their plate properly lit, as almost everything else flows from that. Which is more or less what @ren is saying; the more work that goes into capturing the image, the less work has to go into making a pleasing final product.

Unfortunately, most people live in houses or apartments and not photography studios, so the plates we put up for dinner are usually cast in harsh kitchen lighting, shining from directly overhead. If you are serious about capturing high quality images of your plates, as opposed to quickie snaps from your smartphone camera to share on Facebook, you can invest a few shekels in a light box to get a properly composed and lit image.

But I don't know how practical that is if you're capturing family meals. I know my wife has an internal timer that begins counting down when she takes her seat at the table. It is in my best interest to make sure I have her food under her nose before that timer hits zero. And I can't say that I blame her; if I wasn't the one doing the cooking, I'm not sure I'd appreciate being made to wait while Mr Cook snaps away at an increasingly cooling plate full of my dinner.

Brendan_Lee_56950

Well if you know your way around a computer Lightroom takes about 5 minutes to process in batches, I just import, hit a preset for my camera and it will fix up the exposure and tint and export. I would much rather spend 5 minutes in Lightroom then trying to get the perfect light in my kitchen or try and set up a lightbox.

Thaddeus_37740

@ren thanks ren! Yes agreed the better the orinal photo is the less work needed to process and balance it.

ren_74229

Personally, I try to resist the temptation to throw more tools/programs at a problem as a first solution. If you don't like your food photographs...start with what you have and play with it as much as possible before adding to your system. After all, if you can get a properly exposed, well-framed shot to begin with, then you don't have to spend extra time in post processing fixing errors like white balance, cropping and curve adjustment. Learning how to do things "right" the first time always saves time in the long run.

Separately, I'd say start gathering pictures you do like...whether it be online or off. Try and figure out for yourself what you like about the pictures...from there you can figure out how to make pictures you do like. Or, if you don't have the patience for that, just go on pinterest and you can quickly figure out how to make the kind of pictures that everyone seems to like.

[n.b. replace "pictures" with "dishes" and the approach still works!]

Thaddeus_37740

@Lennard Its @Thadfollowill

Don't laugh at my photos when you see them haha they're all very amateurish "Home-cooked" looking. I'm really trying to learn the modernist style of plating now it's really beautiful.

That Uni Pasta looks so tasty! And pardon me but what type of caviar did you use here? It's got a lovely bluish hue to it!

Lennard__34626

Nice! What's your IG username @thaddeus

I made Eric Riperts uni caviar pasta some time ago and I had a lot of trouble twirling with chopsticks as well

Thaddeus_37740

@Lennard You're right about the chive! I guess from the angle which I was eating it, the curled up chive actually resembled sort of a stalk of flower which is why I thought it looked pretty cool but It didn't come up right in the photo!

And thanks for the compliments! I DID have quite abit of trouble twirling the pasta. My kitchen at home is really ill-equipped so I used a pair of chopsticks instead. Got the job done but it was pretty time consuming and messy.

The photo looks really blurry because it was taken with a Iphone 3GS.:/ I do follow your instagram and the photos there are amazing! Thanks for the comments Lennard!

Lennard__34626

@thaddeus that looks pretty damn good man. I'm sure the shrimp olive oil must have been delicious

I really like the placement of the caviar, very nicely sized bundles and quite spread out. I would have spread the shrimp out all the way(abit clustered on the left and empty on the right). And the chive at the top is a little messy to me.

Did you have trouble twirling your pasta like that? You used a two pronged fork?

Thaddeus_37740

Hi everyone! So I made a Capellini with Shrimp infused olive oil, reconstituted dried mushrooms, cremini mushroom dust, truffle oil and caviar. I've garnished around with a little curled up chives as well and this was the resulting photo.

As you can see the overall photography and presentation leaves alot to be desired, even though it tasted pretty good. Ha-ha!

Please critique on anything guys, from the angling of the camera to the garnishing or the plating. Any comments would be helpful!

Lennard__34626

I would make a lamp with diffused light if I didnt have an external camera flash. Simple lamp covered with a cut out tissue box with a strip of paper to diffuse the light should be good enough

Light box would be superior but you have to make one big enough to hold the largest plate you have

Mira_63004

@Thaddeus, took me a while to figure out lighting too. Natural diffused daylight is best. But if your like me and work on food at odd hours, an artificial light source is necessary. I do use a DSLR for my web shots. For lighting, I use a lowell ego, and other fluorescent lighting. There are DIY versions online that are way cheaper. The light basically can't be warm and yellow. I try to set up my shots to need as little post processing as possible. Anything I do after in photoshop is minimal. Just a little white balance, and contrast.

For instagram, it's all iphone 5. I tend to like overhead shots on the phone more. I use the "photoshop express" app mainly on my phone as well. Similarly, I slightly adjust contrast, brightness and basic saturation.

Hope that helps!

Thaddeus_37740

@Johan

Thanks for the advice! It does look like it works wonders. I'll begin thinking of a way to self manufacture one soon!

seijoed

@THaddeus, yep, the lighting power is the important part (well, not burning down the house is important too).

Thaddeus_37740

@Johan

Hi you mean a self assembled one like this?

http://aswirly.files.wordpress.com/2009/09/more-light1.jpg

seijoed

@Thaddeus a light box is a simple way of controlling what you need.

Can be made for $15 or so.

Thaddeus_37740

@Lennard

No problem about the paragraphing, appreciate such a long and informative reply so early in the morning! The photo means alot to me as sometimes I spend the entire day working on a particular dish and the end result which I post on Instagram tends to look very boring and amateurish looking which I'm trying to avoid!

Recently I've been trying to take the photos under an intense sort of "study lamp" in my bedroom with mix results. I'll definitely be keeping an eye open and studying other photos in search of ways that I can improve myself.

I do not own a DSLR so I guess i'll be trying out the "Snapseed" app which you recomended!

seijoed

All pics I take ar with an iPhone5, some are post processed with the G+ tools,

Mainly lighting and white.

Brendan_Lee_56950

I post-process almost all of my photos through Lightroom. A few clicks and the brightness and shadows are always balanced and I can then highlight maybe a certain hue or saturate the picture with a certain color that is central to the plate.

DiggingDogFarm_65362

Some HDR looks fake, some not so much.

~Martin

Lennard__34626

^ always have problems with paragraphing when typing on CS on my phone. Sorry!

Lennard__34626

HDR images look very 'fake' and cartoony in my opinion. If you want to improve your food photography, I suggest:

1) spend some time researching post processing. You don't have to go overboard, but a certain level of enhancement is great. At the very least you should at least correct the (1) brightness and (2) white balance of your pictures. The easiest way I've found is to use photoshop 'curves', simple hit the curves option and then select the white point on the picture. This tells the program that this point in the photo is supposed to be white, immediately it makes necessary adjustments, most notably to brightness and white balance to correct this. It's not always accurate(you might have to fine tune color balance) but its a great starting point

I generally don't like filters, but if you have brightness and color balance down, then you can start to play with saturation and contrast. These determine how much a picture 'pops', I try not to play around too much this because its easy to go overboard, but this is pretty subjective. Do note that most digital cameras have a certain amount of built in automated post processing, unless you are shooting RAW images

If you don't have photoshop, the best app for photo adjustment on the iPhone is snapseed. Really powerful app and you get to adjust basic stuff like saturation and brightness, as well as cooler stuff like 'ambiance' which I believe affects shadows and highlights

2) you don't need an expensive DSLR, but if you want to improve your food photography drastically, invest in a light setup. This can be as expensive and complicated as an off camera flash shot though a diffusing umbrella, to as simple as buying a lamp that gives you beautiful light and using that to illuminate your photos

3) Take many pictures and angles. If you're home and not pressed for time, take multiple shots so you can select the best looking one. If I'm eating in a restaurant I rarely take more than 3 photos because I personally think its a bit rude so that's a personal constraint, but I go crazy at home, usually anywhere from 6-10 photos of the food I cook so I have multiple angles. My two favorites are the top down angle, and the regular slanted angle as if you were a diner and the dish was placed in front of you

That's all I can think of for now

DiggingDogFarm_65362

HDR (High-Dynamic-Range) imaging.......

http://www.flickr.com/groups/hdrfood/

http://deviantmonk.com/hdr-food-photography-tutorial/

It's my understanding that HDR can be done with some iPhones.

~Martin

Thaddeus_37740

Johan Edstrom Yes the way the plates seem to almost glow in the photos look pretty unrealistic to me but it's the reason why the vibrance of the food stands out so much! I usually take all photos of my food simply using an Iphone 5 camera and the results are never as glorious.

Do the others here use the Iphone 5 as well? Or is everyone else using more technically advanced cameras?