A very quick post on how to capture steam or smoke in your food photography
Hi folks, today I’m giving you a quick introduction into capturing steam or smoke in your food photography. Something to give you a bit of understanding and perhaps inspire you to give it a try for yourself.
You will have seen those hot cups of coffee or a bowl of hot soup with steam coming off them. You see it every day with our own eyes but we don’t really think about how it’s visible to us.
What you need to do is have the light source in a kind of backlighting direction. It can come from the sides but it must be somewhat from the back. You need the light to shine through the smoke or steam. Smoke is easier to capture because it’s denser but steam is more often an aspect you may like in your food photography. There are many other tricks for adding smoke to your image. A cheap way would be to light a wooden skewer and put it out, in those moments it smokes you can bring it into the scene, put the smoke where you like and quickly take the shot.
The other issue you can have is too much steam or smoke and it becomes a large mass rather than wisps and trails. Dry ice or liquid nitrogen requires the same treatment but tends to be easier for the camera to see. Usually, nitrogen and dry ice are more visible therefore the lighting isn’t always as crucial. It very much depends on the shot you’re after.
You see, as light hits the steam or smoke, from the direction you are looking, it is bounced back towards the direction it came, like a soft reflector, making it hard to see. Think of car headlights bouncing back at you when driving in fog. When the light passes through from behind, as it hits the steam or smoke some of it bounces back the other way. The denser parts of the steam or smoke will reflect more light while the less dense will allow light through more easily. The varying contrast in how the light passes through determines our visual interpretation.
If you can’t adjust your light source you must reposition the camera so that the light passes through based on the camera positioning. This is especially so with steam. Try shooting at a lower angle so you’re shooting almost through the steam.
Something else to consider is the colour of your background. Steam and smoke are usually light in colour, therefore a darker background will help show them up when light shines through them.
That’s really all there is to it in food photography, it can get a bit more tricky in a fashion shoot for example. Basically, though, it’s the same principle. It’s not a particularly easy thing to capture unless you’re deliberately going for that, but with practice, you’ll have it in your toolbox for future shoots.
That really was quick. Hope that’s been helpful. Thanks for stopping by and I’ll see you back here very soon.
