How I do food styling when I'm in rush...

I am going to draw the subject away from cooking this time :) Please let me state clear, I'm not any professional, but since we food bloggers probably have more or less the same limitation on equipment and resources, our experience in photo-taking could be more relevant to each other, I think ?!

How our photos coming out involve way too many topics, so this time I just limit to one area - food styling especially under the condition of no time.

Before I start, I already have the mood (of foto) set in my head. Like this one - very brown and warm; I got such feeling during the baking :D

I start taking photo before the sun is getting strong (harsh), for me usually at 10:00 or 11:00 in the morning.

The biggest enemy when we do thing in rush is stress. So here below I show you how I do it quick and how I deal with the stress...

Step 1 (left)

Work on a small table, like 50cm x 50cm. Bigger space requires more props, more planning on position, light source and such (meaning: time)

And use small plates (like saucers or decorative plates for candle are perfect), food got to be small as well.

Don't place all the garnish at once... do the basic/ minimum first (like my case just power sugar); as garnishing can be very tricky, what you think 'should be' can look like a road-kill in foto.

Position the food in the most safe/typical (or call it uncreative if you like) way, to let you have a few photos at least technically corrected. Later you can go crazy, if nothing works out you still have some decent photos on hand:D

Step 2 (right):

Then proceed more decoration to enrich the picture. I added one more spoon, and dropped the chocolate pudding on the brownies.

I wanted to focus on the second brownie, but that scoop looked so unattractive... so I either re-did the deco or swifted to focus to another brownie. I chose the latter

Step 3 (left): here I accomplished another batch of decent shots... up to here it had took me about 15 minutes. From now on my pressure was off, so I could play around the decoration, not to worry too much on ruinning it.

Step 4 (right): I tried placing a tiny, a very cute eating chocolate on the pudding... oops, it looked stupid :P

Step 5 (left): so I broke the chocolate, much better to me.

Step 6 (right): in between I also took some close-ups.

Step 7: Finale...

For me to make thing intricate or surprising got to be spontaneous. So I messed up that oh-so-predictable-straight-line-position, and causally dropped the spoons behind.

This shot turns out to be my favorite. All the food and the spoons are forming a circle, seemingly call me to 'dig in!!!' Hope you agree with me :D

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