Photography Business Interview: Food Photographer Becky Reams

Are you a food photographer, or would you like to lean more about this appetizing and exciting genre of professional photography? In this episode of the Zenologue “Pick Our Brains” featured photographer webinar, I’m really excited to present food photographer Becky Reams. She’s originally from Southern Kansas, and now runs a very successful food photography business in Los Angeles, where she infuses her work with inspiration from a wide variety of sources.

As well as photographing food, Becky is also an expert at creating it, and you may also know her as one of the top 3 chefs from season 3 of FOX’s “MasterChef”.

In this interview we talked about creativity in food photography, how to create better compositions, and make images that stand out from some of the more traditional commercial food or lifestyle photography.

Becky is also an expert in how to retouch food images, and especially at being mindful of not doing too much to the photographs! Instead she focuses on creating a “perfectly imperfect image”, which is becoming the new style in today’s food photography world.

As always, we had some great questions along the way, so pull up a chair and enjoy this chat with Becky.

Watch The Interview

Here’s the recording of our interview webinar, and I’ve included some other resources that you might find useful below:

If you have any problems with the video just let me know.

Here are just some of the topics we covered in this food photographer interview:

• Which came first for you – chef or photographer?
• How do you feel being a chef has influenced your approach to photographing food?
• How do you feel the business of food photography has changed in the last few years?
• What would you say are the biggest business mistakes being made by the new professional food photographer?
• What marketing strategies have you found work best in selling food photography services?
• Which parts of the food photography process do you worry over the most?
• What’s are your most and least favorite types of food to photograph?
• Learning to respect the ingredients…
• Being a good editor and critic of one’s own work…

Some of the great questions from the audience include:

• What do you carry in your toolbox to make the food appear fresh-looking?
• What are your favorite lenses, and do you have a preferred aperture for food?
• Do you have any tricks that you use to make the food look a certain way?
• Besides natural light, what professional lighting equipment do you use?
• If you were to advise future food photographers on early goals and future goals, what time frame would you tell them to prepare for in order for them to have a good chance of being successful?
• Do you draw out your ideas before photographing them?  How do you come up with your compositions?

Additional Show Notes

Here are some additional resources you might find useful for photography gear useful to the food photographer:

• Wimberley clamp + articulating arm
• Manfrotto lateral side arm, tripod mount
• Grip action manfrotto ball head
• Boos block
• Crate and barrel plates
• Heath plates and bowls

Connect With Becky Online

If you want to find out more about Becky and her food photography, you can find her online here:

• Twitter: @MC3Becky or @FoodiePhotog
• Like her Facebook page.
• Follow Becky on Instagram.

Thoughts or Questions?

I hope you enjoyed this interview with Becky about her food photography as much as I did! If you have any thoughts or questions, please do share those in the comments below, and we’ll do our best to answer those for you.