Food Flash Photography: Seamless White Background

Luke | July 10, 2008 | Tags: - - - |
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I feel bad that I have been posting so much about our trip to Vermont. I thought I would slip this post in to break things up a bit. Have no fear, only a couple more posts to go on Vermont. That is what I am telling myself.

This is a picture of a head of purplish cauliflower that I picked up at our farmers’ market. The shiny surface is made possible thanks to a huge piece of tile board that we hauled back from Home Depot last weekend. This sucker was 4′ x 8′. Luckily we used ZipCar and got a truck. It was still a beast to carry. Anyhow, there is a great tutorial on how to do this style of photography, seamless white background, here. That is where I got the idea to pick up a piece of “Budget White Tile Board” as they call it at Home Depot. It was actually a pain to find. In our store it was located in the Molding Aisle, Aisle 23. The tutorial focuses on photographing people, but it can be easily adapted. I am still working on getting this technique down. I will post again with a number of different shots and light positions. Stay tuned!

Here is the setup I used. Basic principal is: have the background brighter than the foreground to blow out the highlights and have it appear all white.

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7 Comments on “Food Flash Photography: Seamless White Background”

  1. peasepudding says:

    great tutorials, thanks! What light would you recommend to get this affect? I currently rely on daylight but it is very limiting in certain seasons and I love this effect. Thanks

  2. Nadine says:

    Found the depth-of-field post via a Stumble! Used the tags/labels on that post to find this one. Appreciate the tutorials. Hope you’ll do some more.

  3. Devon says:

    That seems like a great way to do it, but in my opinion the shadow/reflection looks a bit too intense.

    If I were shooting it, I might try a somewhat less reflective material for the base, but I’m an amateur and haven’t even tried a shoot like this.

  4. Sid Frisjes says:

    Damn…. I seem to need a shitload of material to up the quality of my pic’s.

  5. Kaykat says:

    I’m so loving this pic. Very very cool technique – love how you lit up the background. Thanks for sharing the tips!

  6. melly~ says:

    great blog. surfed over from tastespotting. interested to see what you’ll photograph next.

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