They say every photo tells a story. But what is story telling? How do you tell a story? This professional food photographer will share how to do just that. How to shoot raw food? You love photography gear don’t you? This professional photographer tells us about her photography gear.
Lets Welcome Clare Barboza
Clare Barboza (visit her portfolio and find her ) is a professional food photographer and has been photographing for more than 17years. Her specialty is documentary food photography and she loves telling stories with her photography. In this interview Clare shares a lot of great information. This includes:
Basic Elements of a Great Food Photo
The Basic elements of a great photo are great light and great composition. These two elements are the core of any photograph. Other things include color and sharp photo or proper focusing.
Steps for Shooting Raw Food
- Find what fruit or vegetable are you drawn into.
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Pick up a feature that you like. Is it the texture or the color or the shape? Or something else?
- Start playing with prop styling. Try different dishes and props.
Other Awesome Topics in This Interview
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The Step by Step Process of Shooting for a Cookbook
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How to Tell a Story with Photography
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What Camera and Lenses Does She Use
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And Much More…
Listen to her interview by clicking below.
Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.
Soon I’ll upload a higher quality version of this interview along with some more notes.
As Always…
Please don’t hesitate to say hi to Clare Barboza on twitter @clarebarboza and if you found this helpful feel free to give her feedback. As mentioned in the interview, feel free to contact her if you would like to learn more about food photography or need feedback on your photos.
Need Your Feedback
Readers, I need your feedback. Are these interviews helping you? What should I do differently? What suggestions do you have for doing these interviews?
All photos copyright of Clare Barboza and should not be used without her permission.
Thank you so much for all these tips! I’m learning like mad.
Yes, these are absolutely awesome and helpful! Great job!
I’m curious about what Clare said about tilt-shift lenses. She said if she sees a photo she can tell if its t-s or not. I’m wondering if a tilt-shift photo starts to look more like a photo from a ‘regular’ lens at narrower aperture settings? Is a t-s lens put to best use only at wider apertures (because it gives great background blur)?
Thanks again for a superb conversation!
Hi Veggie Belly, (love the name, by the way)
So glad you liked the interview!
If you are using the tilt function on a tilt-shift lens, then tilt-shift photos have a distinct look to them, regardless of the aperture setting. It’s true that if the aperture is wider then there is more blur, and if it’s smaller then there is more that is sharp in the frame. However, either way, a tilt-shift photo looks like a tilt-shift photo. If you are NOT tilting the lens, then the image will look like any other shot taken with a “regular lens.”
If I can figure out a way to share some images with you, I can show you two photos of the same subject- one taken with a t-s lens, and one not and then you can see the difference for yourself.
Clare
Hi, I can´t listen to the interview, what can I do?
Hi Angelica,
Don’t know what kind of problem you are having. Since this is a mp3 player, it will take a little while to stream.
Great stuff, do you ever use studio lights or only ambient light
Hanli,
I use natural light 95% of the time. The only time I use studio lights is if I am shooting at night and there is not natural light available. In that case, I will occasionally use strobes or I will use the Lowell Ego tabletop lights. Those are great and very affordable!!
Clare
I love this idea and would like to see more. However, audio-only interviews are not very good for me, because I have a hearing impairment. A transcript or bullet points of the main ideas would be quite useful. Just a thought.
Appreciate your comments Nic. I am thinking of putting a transcript together. Hope to do that sometime soon.
I just finished listening to this great interview! I learned so many useful tips, love the idea of shooting raw food, I´m just learning and sometimes i don´t have time to cook something to photograph, so shooting raw food is a good way to practice. Thanks
The audio interviews don’t work for me. The problem is at my end. I guess there is more usage than available band width where I live. The interviews take forever to download, and then have constant interruptions. Ten minutes later, I’m still waiting for it to finish downloading. I wish the interviews were available in text form also.
Kathleen
That’s a great interview, but I had some problems trying to listen as the audio wasn’t that clear for me. Maybe next time you can have a higher quality version? Thanks!
A very informative, useful and interesting interview. Thank you Clare for sharing your experience and thanks Neel for making this interview. I just have one question-request to Clare. Would it be possible to make a short tutorial or a paid workshop available online about how to photograph food with speedlights particularly focusing on how to achieve a natural light look when photographing with speedlights. Thank you.
@Stacy “That’s a great interview, but I had some problems trying to listen as the audio wasn’t that clear for me. Maybe next time you can have a higher quality version? Thanks!”i just tried to listen to this too, it sounded ok to me as i am using my sony over the ear stereo earphones,maybe adjust the volume on your headset or computer that might be why the audio is not clear.Great interview by the way.
Thanks for sharing this.