Alan Benson

Alan Benson

Alan is a Sydney based food and travel photographer. Living in Sydney, Alan has his own studio and gets to travel the world to photograph the food culture of our world. His photographs are used for publisher and food lifestyle books.

As a third year student at CIT, we got a great opportunity to spend a day with Alan, as he was in Canberra photographing at Poachers Panty in Murrumbateman. The photo shoot was for the branding launch for Poachers Panty, who now are marketing their smoked meat to the IGA Supermarket chain. The food photo shoots where to be used for the recipe cards that will be available in the IGA Supermarkets, located next to the smoked meats. Also on the day, there were some lifestyle shots taken, which will be used on their website. There were raw food products that have been shot for deep etching and these will be used with their design to remarket the brand -Poachers Pantry.

We arrived at Poachers Pantry around 9:30am and Alan was already in full swing with his work. The aim for the day was to get 6 food photographs and some lifestyle shots of talents enjoying the food on a sunny day to give a ‘summer feel’ to the photographs. This was going to be interesting, as it was a very cold winter’s day in Canberra!
Some of the equipment that I notice was brought to the shoot were:

1. Mac book laptop that Alan was shooting tethered to.
2. Nikon D3 with a range of lenses: Tilt shift 85mm, f2.8 /85mm, f1.8/70-200mm and f2.8.
3. The software that Alan was using was Light Room.
4. Black cards to block light. Reflectors and defuses to defuse the sunlight or flashlight.
5. A tripod was used for all the food shots. The tripod had a cable release.
6. Speed light for the Nikon, with a warming gel.
7. Lots of textured wooden doors, props and cutlery.
8. Glass bricks to shoot the flash through (nice effect).

The main food dishes were all photographed by natural light. When speaking to Alan about the light, he said: “there is always the problem with having too much available light. I like to have light that is coming from one direction. That is why I use the black card to flag off the light in order to control the light falling on the food.”

Alan’s method for the day was that he would get ‘mock up’ dishes to test the lighting first. Alan would light the dish perfectly and then build the set, piece by piece. This is where Alan would construct the images by adding more light or removing light and by adding textured boards and props (like napkins and glasses to enhance the photograph). The designing of the shot would also then help the designer who had a concept of where the images were taken and how they are to fit into their marketing plan.

Alan would mostly photograph the food from a high point, angling the camera down to the food. By using a shallow depth of field, you could easily be attracted to the food first in the photograph. Alan spent a good time making sure that the food was in focus and in shape. He would use the tilt shift at times, to help with the focal perspective.

Alan said: “I would always take more photographs of the food, as this is the safety net that I use. We may have the shot in the first frame, but while the food is there, I will take extra fames, making small adjustments to each frame (like camera angles, depth of field and background changes).

It was great to see how relaxed and patient Alan was on the day, even with a few extra nosey students watching. Great results were quickly achieved. Thanks Alan for the day, which was full of useful insight on how a successfully paid job would go.