NZPhotographer Issue 35, September 2020

when diffused by clouds so those desired soft shadow
transitions are not something natural sunlight can
provide without assistance.
In restaurant or cafe locations where there are large
open areas, the harshness of the light is often already
diffused in some way – either through shop front
windows or from being bounced off walls or other
surfaces. Where soft light is desired (my preference)
this can mean additional diffusion is often not needed
and in fact, using natural light can lead to less time
spent on taking the shot due to setting up lights and
therefore means a quicker turn around on images.
That’s all good and well when you’re out and about
but what do you do when you’re stuck at home
because of lockdown, have only the kitchen window
as your light source, and still want to fill your portfolio
with delicious looking food photos that don’t scream
of “here’s a quick phone snap of the chicken salad
the kids and I just made.”?!
Here are a few tips and tricks, including one quick
and simple way of solving the ‘lighting problem’ in the
home environment.
As you can see in image 1, natural light is pouring in
the kitchen window to the right of my yoghurt and
strawberry croissant. Unsurprisingly, that has produced
hard shadows even with diffusion from a cloudy day.
There is also not quite enough lighting on the left-hand
side of the plate to fully highlight the juicy freshness of
the just purchased strawberries.
To resolve this, I could swivel the plate around so the
strawberries are facing into the light but I would still
be left with unwanted shadows plus I quite liked the
strawberries on the left.
My solution was to leave the plate alone and add
in two artificial light sources – a freestanding lamp
from the lounge, and a small desk lamp. These lights
on their own have the potential to overpower the
scene since I am unable to easily adjust their output
so I needed to reduce their impact instead – not by
moving them away from the plate, which is often the
first option people think of, but by diffusing their light
output using some pillowcases. The left lamp is as big
as the plate and has a 53w warm tinted bulb in it so
it’s bright enough to warrant using both sides of the
pillowcase. The desk lamp is quite a lot smaller and as
it just had a 35w bulb, I only needed one side of the
pillowcase to soften its impact.
Hint: The closer the light is to your subject, the softer it
will be.
Hint: Only turn your lights on when ready to shoot to
prevent overheating.
IMAGE 1
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NZPhotographer