Gold Karl Taylor Education - Croissant (Food Photography)

Simple food photography setup – Croissant


In this food photography class Karl and Anna cover the easy studio lighting setup used to create this bright, fresh image.

Using only two studio lights, they demonstrate how to photograph food at home using a simple lighting setup with affordable modifiers. Karl also explains the advantages of using studio light over natural light and shows how to control the light to maximise shape, form and three dimensionality of an image.

Class objectives:

• Show how to photograph food at home
• How to photograph food using studio light
• Two light food photography setup
• Affordable modifiers for food photography
• How to control studio light to enhance shape and form

Once you’ve mastered natural light photography, one of the next steps is to try photographing with studio lights. This class, where Karl and Anna photograph an image of croissants, demonstrates a simple lighting setup ideal for those who are new to studio lighting or only have minimal studio equipment.

For this shot Karl uses studio lights with affordable accessories to re-create the feel of early morning light, showing how to achieve this using one or two lights.


The lighting setup for this shoot required two lights with basic modifiers.

The advantages of using studio light instead of natural light is that it allows you to work at any time of day. As Anna explains, this is a huge advantage for her as she does a lot of her work in the evenings. Studio lights also allow for extra creative opportunities compared to when using only natural light.

Two important points to consider when working with studio lights is the balance and position of your lights.

Karl starts by discussing the balance of the lights and how, by simply adjusting the power of the fill light, you can either increase or decrease three dimensionality in an image.


Important considerations when it comes to lighting is the balance of your lights and how this impacts the shape and three dimensionality of the subject.

The second point to consider is the position of the light. The direction and height of your lights can have a big impact on the overall image. The direction of the light can help add shape, form and texture while the position (distance and height) of the lights will influence the contrast and shadows. You can see from the video that lights in a lower position will produce more shadows and give the feeling of early morning or late evening, while lights in a higher position will have shorter shadows.

These two points are important to consider whenever you’re using studio lighting. Regardless of whether you’re photographing a portrait with one light or a product with five lights — understanding how to control your lights will allow you to create the best possible image.


The final croissant image.


Source: https://karltayloreducation.com/class/simple-food-photography-setup-croissant/

Link: https://p-v.club/threads/karl-taylor-education-croissant-food-photography.32197/#post-206535