Favorite Food Photography Links: CK Food Links--Friday July 18, 2008

Here are some of my personal favorite links on food photography.

When I started Casual Kitchen, I had no absolutely no clue how to take food photographs (heck, I didn't even know that food photography was a discipline at all). But over the past year or so, I've been paying much more attention to this aspect of my blog, and I've even surprised myself with an occasional halfway-decent food photo.

Here are the articles and sites that have helped me the most in my efforts to learn how to take better photographs of food:

Shoot First, Eat Later from Food & Wine.com
Nine concise and rapid-fire tips for taking better food photos. Basic and extremely helpful.

Tasteful Food Photography from O'Reilly Digital Media
A great post on how to get professional-grade food photos with a minimum of expense and equipment. Useful suggestions here on using closeups and styling with inexpensive garnishes.

Two instructive posts on food photography from the Digital Photography School:
1) Food Photography Tips and Techniques
Great ideas on composition, angles and styling.
2) Food Photography: An Introduction
An older post on the same site with still more useful hints.

Our Approach to Food Photos from Smitten Kitchen
This article, when it came out last fall, was a key catalyst that got me interested in food photography. If Deb and Alex can take such amazing food photos as amateurs, perhaps I can too!

A Few Observations About Photography from Use Real Butter
In my opinion, Jen Yu is one of the most gifted amateur food photographers out there, so I was really happy when she recently posted her insights on the subject.

An Insider's Look at Food Photography from Shutterbug
Fascinating discussion of the various various tricks of the trade used by the professional food photographers. Won't be terribly useful for amateurs who actually plan to eat the food they photograph (mmm....glycerin) but interesting nonetheless.

The Dirty Tricks of Food Photographers from Photocritic.org
Still more, and even grosser, tricks of the trade. Amusing to read all the indignation in the comments.

Finally, at Flickr, there is a massive amount of information in the food photography discussion boards. I'm still scratching the surface there.

How can I support Casual Kitchen?
If you enjoy reading Casual Kitchen, tell a friend and spread the word! You can also support me by subscribing to my RSS feed, or submitting this article, or any other article you particularly enjoyed here, to bookmarking sites like del.icio.us, digg or stumbleupon.