Beyond Daylight 

The most successful food shots are always the ones with great lighting as most powerful element.

In a recent survey of food photographers from all over the world about what kind of light they would choose  to shoot with over 90% said artificial light 

Food is one of the easiest subjects to take a bad picture . Just watch as people take out their phones the next time you’re at a restaurant and you’ll know why .  They will find that the light in the restaurant is all wrong, its to uneven or to hard, the colour all wrong ,and when you move the food or plate its even worse !

There are thousands of food photography courses and they all teach one thing- How to Photograph Food using daylight. However putting up a reflector or two is not going to help you shoot for real food clients on real jobs.

Daylight is beautiful , it’s useful because it’s always there. It’s found everywhere so you don’t have to bring pesky lights with you - but it has it’s limits.

Daylight is 100% dependent on where you are shooting, the season and even time of day determine the light you will get to work with.

Daylight can bring two much contrast for food or in some cases offer only flat and lifeless light. Daylight is so inconsistent in its colour as the colour temperature changes from season to season and during the day. You can not control the angle that daylight enters your studio and as a photographer you don’t want to have to change the angle of your set every few hours as the daylight moves around your building. Photographing with Daylight outdoors is a disaster for food because you get no real direction to the light - it’s all over and makes for poor pictures. 

light in the natural environment can be controlled by not to the same level as artificial lights in the studio.

I have a Masters in Photography and I have lectured students on a Degree in Photography and the time given over to this topic of lighting is usually limited , mostly in my opinion because people don’t know how enough about lighting.  Despite the emergence of digital photography the one that hasn’t changed is the need for something to look good using lighting. That will never change .

I use Flash, Hard Lighting , Soft Lights, Tungsten, Theatre lights, LED and and HMI .

It all depends on what I’m trying to achieve. 

The Photographers who do something different gain higher visibility for their work .

If you want to be a professional Photographer or create looking professional results , you will want to control everything about picture making.

Using your own lights means you decide on the lighting effects you want .

Using your own lighting means your results are repeatable every time.

Using your own lighting means consistent results from shot to shot.

Using your own lighting means you can be more confident in any situation 

Controlling light is probably the most important skill you will need.

The lighting is not something you can change later in photoshop or retouching , it’s something you do at the time of making the image .

 Retouchers will tell you that getting the lighting right especially when combining images is the most important thing they want from us photographers . Those first decisions you make when lighting something determine most of how the pictures will turn out for better or worse .

Lighting is my favourite part of photography. If you can master light then you can take your photography to another level and you will be more in demand as a photographer. 

LIGHTING IS SOMETHING TO MARVEL AT IN THE REAL WORLD , TO SEE HOW THE LIGHT ENTERS A ROOM , UNDER A DOOR, THE QUALITY OF LIGHT IN DIFFERENT COUNTRIES, THE VIBRANCY, COLOUR , MOOD, EMOTION.

Lighting creates it all..

Light is something to control absolutely,  but also to experiment with , to become more creative with. 

I will be running a mini course Beyond Daylight - Using Artificial Light for Food Photography, send me a mail if your interested to mike@mikeotoole.com 

The 10 best things about being a Photographer

1.You dream it all up yourself

I started as a Photographer at 16, by 18 I was planning where my career could go. I’d go into O’Sullivans Graphics and look at the best Photography work in the Art Directors Index . I decided to go to London and call some of the people in that Index. I expanded my universe by going there to learn. Id seen pictures of Photographers with multiple cameras around their necks and fabulous studios and I know I wanted to be part of that. Visualisation works , you go with your own vision, but you need a clear picture , not a fuzzy one for your future !

2.You make things

We get to make photos which are all unique and special to each client, they are things people need for Ads, websites and digital campaigns. We get to be creative, and working to a brief, you can still add something. As an artist you take random elements and put them together into something more of their parts. That’s the skill. The scientist takes stuffapart, an artist puts stuff together. I get to be creative, to find solutions to our clients problems, sometimes these are how to shoot something so it looks a certain way other times it’s how to find a solution for a small budget. At other times it’s just being flexible, a key skill for any freelancer.

3.You set your own standards

Ok so you have to be hard on yourself, you have to push yourself. You have no one set- ting the tone, it’s your career , it’s your baby .
I admired the work Bill Walsh, Pepijn Linders and Clive Woodward. They are Football, Soccer and Rugby coaches. They all had one thing in common , they have a set of standards for what they did. In fact I met Pepijn Linders in Holland before he went on to now

become assistant manager to Jurgen Klopp at Liverpool. He had a philosophy, a methodology and a set of standards.

4.You get to meet interesting people like Slavoj Zizek , the Philosopher and Writer. I had to spend two days photographing him but he used me as his audience, he had me enraptured. He is worth checking out on You Tube. He was staring in a Film called The Pervert’s Guide to Ideology, in which he examines the main ideas and reworks the main role in famous films like Titanic or Taxi Driver Sound of music and others.

5.You get asked to photography some crazy stuff like Sushi on a naked models body - it’s a thing they do in Japan. it doesn’t work as well on a cold beach in Killiney in November . Then their was the Grasshoppers - which I thought were easy things to Photograph until their bodies warmed up under the studio lights and took off, leaping maybe 10 feet away. Having live grasshoppers living in the studio is not something I wanted. One of my favourite shoots was in New York for Bank Of Ireland Student loans . A student has run out of money , has pawned all his clothes and is standing outside a pawn shop . My assistant agreed to be the model to save on costs but as he stood in his underpants on the streets in New York, he got some looks and I couldn’t contain my laughter.

6.You get to test your grit , see what your made of .

I’ve done the rounds, calling Art Directors, Designers, magazines, Book publishers, PR People and Clients, meetings after meetings , year by year . One Advertising agency I went to maybe 12 meetings over 9 years . I finally got some jobs from them, but it was hard graft. You have to have the brief and persistence . it’s the part of my job that I consider my gym - it’s hard work but it just has to be done. Once I’m at the agency meetings I love them, meeting new people and talking about the work.

7.You work with many talented people

I’ve got to work with other talented people, from Producers, Graphic Designers, Assis- tants, Chefs, Make Up artists, Printers, Art Directors, Retouchers, Food Stylists, Location finders, Clothes Stylists and Props people.

8.11AM.

11am is the time in cafes that I like best. At 11am the world is quiet. People are in their offices, the school runs are over, the students are in college.
At 11 am I can be anywhere , if I’m not shooting , I can be in one of maybe 10 cafes. One of my favourites is the little one in Killiney Dart station. 11am is the time us freelancers are there, the stay at home Dads, the underemployed or the retired people. People who can press pause on the day.

9.You get to eat the food !

I do a lot of Food Photography, and my wife Anne Marie is a top Food Stylist .

We create pictures and videos for Food Companies and Advertising and Digital Content. We do lots of seasonal shoots, Christmas, Easter, Mothers day and get to work on TV ads.

The amount of food we buy is crazy, Annemarie has to create from recipes, to be pre- pared for re takes and multiple repeats for camera. You have to go to several outlets to choose the best looking food. Anne Marie does the styling and cooking, I do the eating .

10. I can do other things to keep me fired up !

I have done my fair share of side projects. I had been teaching and coaching, for Sport . I studied Adult Guidance and Sports Coaching. I made short Films, one even got into The New York Food Film Festival in 2015. Recently I’ve created a 2 day workshop and 6 Week course that combines Mindfulness and Photography which has got bookings already for next year. It going to be great, I’ve very excited about it.

“I prefer the hen that looks up to the sky than the eagle that flies but always looking down.
How high is not the question, but how intense is your longing for the sky” - Sadhguru.
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I’ve been a bit over obsessed with achievement. Establishing my own business at sixteen, I believed anything was possible.
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Ten years later, I picked up the Association of Photographers award, presented to me by Melvin Bragg on the stage at the Barbican in London. I had my work published in several books.
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Going into a bookstore in New York and seeing the Jodi Picolut Book I contributed the cover for was a big thrill. Getting the cheque for the best selling book even better! Having exhibitions, a Masters in photography award, a sports coaching award, best car, best camera, big jobs. Always looking to the future.
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We are born makers, our instinct is to create stuff - so achievement must be hard wired into our DNA. Now I think it’s important we know what we’re working toward. I’ve looked at what success means and what failure means. I’m still passionate about making my projects happen but I don’t attach my own self worth to them.
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My expectations of myself are still high. I’m kinder on myself. I’m grateful for family, friends, clients. Grateful for being able to travel and experience new things. Doing my best, living in the now, not the fantasy of awards, not putting to much pressure on myself.
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