A warm start to an evening but a very cool and healthy dinner. Using a 20 inch shoot through umbrella with my Flash Point Flash set at 1/8th power and to camera’s left at 90%. My settings are Shutter Speed 200, ISO 100, Aperture is at F5 and I am using my 24-120 lens at 100mm to give my photos a bit of softness and bokeh.

My 24-120 lens only goes to F4. Zooming in at F5 at 100mm I was able to accomplish the look I was hoping to obtain. Using a lens with a wider aperture would have taken away the mood I was going for. However, I still could have made it happen, I just would have had to tweak my composition and add black reflectors. Either way works, which is the beautiful thing about photography. As you grow, you will learn so many techniques can accomplish the same look, you just have to stop and think on ways to make it happen with the tools you have.

Typically, I use foam core boards, white to reflect and black to reject/absorb the light. However, my mood was an evening setting and because it was on or around 8pm EST I just used the darkness coming in from outside to enhance the mood of mine.

For my post production, I used a preset from a YouTube Food Photographer that I follow, “We Eat Together” and make my own tweaks as well. I highly recommend watching and subscribing to his channel, he is very good and fun to watch and I have learned a great deal as well.

I hope you enjoy the photos and feel free to reach out if you have any questions. I am Tina Coe and This is PHooD (food) Photography with a PHD. Let’s Make Memories….AND Eat!