When you are photographing an event you need to photograph the details. Signs, decorations, food and more all help tell the story of the event. (Don’t forget the people).

This weekend I photographed a party in Salt Lake City, Utah. When the food is ready at an event you don’t have a lot of time to get the shots but you want to get them done right. Often the food is ready and people are already lining up to get food.

At events you can’t be weighed down with huge studio lights – you travel light and you want to move fast and get out of people’s way. Below I have my lighting setup – the Nikon SB-800 speedlight is attached to a Lastolite Ezybox 24″ on a Manfrotto light stand.

Lastolite Ezybox with Nikon SB-800

I always photograph in manual mode and I used the Nikon’s wireless TTL lighting system. I will be writing up some better blog posts how to use the Nikon Creative Lighting System in the future.

And here is a sample photograph from that evening (P.S. the food was delicious!). The food was catered by Bambara in Salt Lake City.

Sample food photograph

Hooray! My first behind the scenes of a lighting set up. I have been working on taking one photograph a day at least for an entire year. Today I really had a hunger for some frosted sugar cookies and I ended up getting some donuts as well. So when you have some really yummy and beautifully decorated food you might as well photograph it right? Thats what I thought.

So here is my lighting set up – I am using a Nikon SB-800 on a Manfrotto light stand. I am using the Nikon CLS (Creative Lighting System) to trigger the speedlight remotely. It is shooting through a 24″ Lastolite Ezybox softbox. I often use this lighting set up when photographing people and it works for photographing most anything. I have a reflector on the other side of the donuts to fill in the shadows cast on the food.

Food looks best when it is brightly lit and it looks best when lit from the side or from behind.

Behind the scenes of food photography

The next two photos show off the difference of the shadows with and without the reflector. This would also work with people. I love to have dramatic lighting where the light come from one side or the other – but sometimes that is too much drama and you can put a second light on the opposite site OR you can use a reflector. And reflectors are a lot cheaper.

Donut light with softbox and reflector

Softbox only - no reflector