COOKBOOK PICTURE GUIDELINES

JUST A LITTLE SOMETHING.First of all, thank you for taking your time to help take pictures for the GatorWell cookbook! It definitely helps move the project forward, allows me to focus on the editorial aspects, and just makes for good food.

Everyone’s tastes are different, and therefore everyone will have different styles of taking pictures. To help make your pictures fit cohesively with others’ for the cookbook, I’ve provided guidelines and examples of what to aim for.

Here are some rules to follow in order to help keep pictures consistent within the GatorWell cookbook:

• Do not use flash photography. The flash from your camera adds artificial lighting to the food, which usually creates some unappetizing sheen and contrast in the picture. If you have a fancy DSLR camera, you should use the “Flash Off” mode. If you’re using your smartphone, just make sure the flash is off.

• Use natural lighting. It makes the food look better, and highlights the health aspect as well. When setting up for the picture, place your food next to a window that gets a lot of natural sunlight. The window helps diffuse lighting, which allows for the light to softly disperse all over the plate, like powdered sugar to beignet!

• Have large resolutions. The bigger the size of your pictures, the better. Though the cookbook will start as an e-cookbook, any future attempts to print the cookbook would need high quality pictures. For you DSLR users, you also have the ability to create different file types! You guys have the option to take RAW photos, along with JPEGs. Ideally, you should do both, but if you don’t have the memory space for it, shoot in RAW.

• Focus on the food. Your camera should be able to focus on the food in the forefront, naturally blurring the background. If there’s anything you find paticularly interesting characterstics of your dish, include

• It should feel local. Backgrounds and countertops should feel like it found locally, especially found near campus. So if your background has brick buildings or a good amount of tamed flora, it’ll work as long as it screams UF. Wooden tables or atypical countertops? Show off that grain or texture as long as it isn’t granite. What about plates? White plates work best, but if it’s white with decorations around it, that works too. Anything else doesn’t.

OVERVIEW

Close-ups or overhead shots will work with the GatorWell cookbook. The central focus should be the food, but feel free to include items that are related to the food (even ingredients with the finished product). That provides context, which helps with the local aspect of the cookbook. And keep in mind that the shots don’t have to be just of the finished product. Ingredients, cookware, and even hands doing the process are all up for grabs!

WHAT ABOUT THE SHOTS?