Event Photography Meets Food
It was a perfect marriage: An event photographer in Dallas, who loves food and especially enjoys any opportunity to photograph it, and an event that was all about the food. A more perfect match couldn’t be found anywhere. Seriously, go look, you won’t find it.
I recently had the opportunity to cover an event for an organization that is focused towards creating editorial content for the foodservice industry. Within that scope is everyone from editors and PR professionals to manufacturers, restaurants and trade groups. With that, there was a ton of material for this event photographer in Dallas to cover. Normally when I photograph an event, there are several key elements that I’m looking for. Those details include: capturing pertinent details; shots of the speaker or speakers talking on the stage; audience reaction and/or participation; and of course capturing candids and posed photos during awards ceremonies. Things typically happen quickly, and I have to work with a variety of lighting scenarios, some of which can be pretty low light, or if you prefer, romantically lit. The corporate event photographer in Dallas in me is always game for a challenge, and this particular event had all of that and then included an extra wrinkle: getting food and product beauty shots while still on the run getting everything else.
Anyone that has ever looked at photos of food knows that the lighting has to look right in order for it to look appetizing. If a dish is not shot in just the right way that highlights its unique characteristics, it will fall flat, or not look like it tastes as good as it does. That meant that the client needed an event photographer in Dallas who moved swiftly and could turn out high quality food photography at the same time. I had my standard event equipment set up on hand, but also added a few items for the food.
The first addition was having a macro lens. That allowed me to focus at whatever distance I wanted in order to get loose or very tight details. I typically like shooting my Dallas food photography pretty tight so that one can really experience the color and textures. A macro lens has almost no limit to how close you can focus, which leaves me free to shoot however I would like.
The other component is lighting it so that those colors and textures really pop out at you. If your mouth starts watering, then I’ve done my job as a food photographer in Dallas. To do this, I brought my portable lighting kit with softbox. It folds up and all packs in to my camera case, so I can essentially create a miniature studio anywhere I go. I can’t count how many times I set that rig up for the event, which spanned several days at the Omni Hotel in Dallas. I photographed everything from beer and avocados to peanuts and king crab. I would have to say though, that one of the main highlights was the night that I documented a chef showcase.
For that particular night they brought in some of the best chefs in Dallas to make dishes for the attendees, and then paired each chef with a particular food supplier. I think when it was all said and done I captured about 12 dishes in addition to getting candid photographs and posed shots of the chefs. It was quite the whirlwind but was an absolute blast for this event photographer in Dallas. There was so much creativity in how the chefs handled their particular food, and of course the dishes tasted every bit as good as they photographed!