Golden Beetroot Hummus + A Grey Salt Collective Prompt

It’s safe to say that the group enjoyed the latest Grey Salt Collective food photography prompt of Shades of Marigold.

Reading your comments about how these prompts are helping you break through habits, look at creating images for your businesses in a new light, and seeing REAL improvement and results in your food photography skills only deepens my belief that you can watch all the videos, and read all the manuals, but unless you DO THE WORK, you will NOT GROW.

It also makes my heart really happy.
I’ve had this ‘community’ in my head for a long time, and I’m happy to see it materializing.
Of course, this would be nothing without all of you – an incredible group of artists who are passionate about being the best food photographers you can be. Thank you!

I also think that having a bit more structure to the group, these prompts and my newsletter has built a sweet momentum which keeps everyone inspired to do their very best!

Here’s a sampling of some of the gorgeous images from Shades of Marigold!

Please know that I am walking this walk with all of you, and work on the prompts as well.
No matter where we’re at on our journey and skill levels, there’s ALWAYS room for improvement and inspiration.

I shot my images at home this time and want to share a few of the recipes, as well as some of the bts and food photography related details with you.

Turmeric cashews from one of my very favorite food bloggers, Heidi Swanson of 101 Cookbooks, and where you can find her original recipe, is where this shoot started.

Some recipe notes: I tweaked my version by using coconut oil instead of sesame seed oil, and I added ground fenugreek and ground toasted coriander to my spice mixture, and omitted the sesame seeds.
This little snack has become a family favorite!

The BEST Golden Beet Hummus and a tasty and quick Yellow Curry Stew followed – more photos of those at the end of the post, with recipe links.

Tech Notes:
Camera + Lenses – Canon 5dMark3 . Canon 100mm f/2.8 L IS Macro . Canon EF 24‑70mm f/2.8L

BTS Shots:

Because I shot night and day, I ended up using both strobe light and natural window light as my light sources. The goal was keeping the look consistent throughout all of the images, regardless of the light source.

If you haven’t read my post on ONE LIGHT SOURCE, hop over and read that one too!

For the strobe, I pointed my Profoto D-1 directly into a white door to create a pretty large source of light bouncing back into the room and softly falling on my set.
For the natural light, I used a bay of northwest facing windows which gave me even, indirect light for my set.

In some images I used a white bounce card to fill in shadows, and nothing additional on others.
Both bts of my set ups are below.

Food Photo Tip:

When you’re creating more than a few images, remember to have variety in your images.
Move around your set, rework your scene, change up your camera angles, and camera lenses. Be sure to have a mix of close ups, medium shots and wider shots.
You will need a variety of all of these kinds of shots to tell an interesting visual story.

Food Styling Tips:

Use the ingredients/toppings/garnishes from your recipe as not only separate ingredient shots, but as ‘food props’ as well.

Visually, I went for an overall dark and moody look, and kept my props fairly minimal.

I wanted to use steely greys + cool deep blues as a companion to the hues of marigold – basically blue and yellow on the color wheel.
If you’re not yet utilizing the color wheel as tool for your food photography, I challenge you to do so!
Here is a fun and interactive link to get you started.

I shot tethered directly to my laptop and into Lightroom.
As for editing, all of the basic corrections were done in LR as well as specifically utilizing the saturation sliders to dial in the ‘yellow tones’ before exporting to PS for any final touch ups.

Below are the final images from this shoot and this prompt and additional recipe links:
Golden Beet and Turmeric Hummus
Yellow Thai Curry

I will never stop reminding other food photographers (and myself) of the importance of consistently working on your food photography skills, and of creating new imagery for yourselves, either through personal projects or communities like Grey Salt Collective.

If you’d like to join us and work on your craft, visit this page for the details.
It’s free, easy and FUN!