- What's going on?
I go by the name of Chris "Ludacris" Bridges,
I'm a rapper, actor.
And today, a food photographer, believe it or not.
Thanks to Skillshare.
(upbeat music)
- How is it looking in Georgia today?
- It's great man.
I wish you could see the background.
It's like a perfect day outside.
It's like 76 degrees, is sunny.
There's not a cloud in the sky.
So we feeling good.
- Honestly, I think you should have
an eighth career as a weatherman.
I'd watch that every day.
- (laughs) You know, I've never had that suggestion
but I might take that into consideration, man.
I always love different side hustles
where you can have multiple streams of income.
- You've had a like a really long career,
doing a lot of different things.
Like how's your mindset as like an eternal student.
- I'm just a curious person, period.
About everything in the world.
And I feel like there's an unlimited amount
of education that you can give to yourself.
And that's the best way, self-improvement.
- You said that you're really passionate about photography.
So that puts you at film,
music, entrepreneurship, and now photography.
But, when did you first went in that interest bad
for you, what like lit that fire?
- I'm one of those do it yourself, individuals.
Like I just literally, even if I end up hiring
someone to do the job,
I've always been that way.
I have to at least understand the fundamentals
of everything that goes on around my life
and my family's life.
So with that being said,
if I was traveling somewhere with just my family,
then I'm not about to hire a photographer to come with me,
I'm going to become the photographer.
You know, it started that way.
And then all of a sudden I started
having an affinity and a love for it.
And then I started buying different lenses,
and different cameras and all of a sudden
I'm like, I actually could do this.
And you know, the only problem is,
you can't video record yourself by yourself.
Sometimes you need someone to stand
a distance from you and do it,
but you can put it on that self timer
like a mother (beep).
So hey, it can ha...
Can we curse in this or I don't really know.
(crowd laughing)
(camera shot)
If anything, I want to encourage people
while I'm doing this Skillshare
to continue to learn
and continue to be a do it yourself
because you can learn anything
especially over the internet.
- You're here right now.
I'm a stranger and you're trusting me
to teach you something which
speaks volumes about like - Hey, hey, hey man
I'm not trusting you just yet.
I'm going to see how good of a teacher you are.
And I'm going to judge for myself - Okay
with the duration of what we have going on.
And then you let me be the judge
on whether you're a good teacher.
I'm just giving you a chance. - Oh, for sure
- That's all I'm doing.
I give everyone a chance.
I mean, look at your hair
and my hair is pretty similar.
I got to give you a chance.
- Yeah if you just reached out to your shows, probably
like a report card or something.
You can just send off for me after that.
Stereotypical photography or the regular photography
whatever you want to call it,
shooting from a distance
doing all these different things and food photography.
What the hell is the difference?
Oh, you can be a photographer,
but food photography?
Oh, that's something totally different.
That takes a whole other type of skill set.
So that's really why I'm here today.
Cause I'm confused on what (beep) difference
of regular photography and food photography is.
Man, I can shoot close up.
I can do this.
- So many things that you have to deal with.
If yourself you're traveling
there's light that you don't control.
There are people that are in your shot.
But food photography from the ground up,
it almost resembles painting in a way
because you are setting everything to be perfect.
You have so much more control,
but because food is something that you see every day
food photography, it's so important for you to
be able to translate exactly what the value proposition
of that food is to the user immediately.
What plate color contrasts well with this?
How's the light hitting this?
- Yeah. It's like taking it a step further
and things just absolutely looking perfect
like in all the damn commercials that we see
when we go to these restaurants
and the food looks absolutely nothing like
what we see it on television and the commercial.
Food photography has to look perfect.
So I get it, man.
I kind of like you as a teacher right now, man.
It's only been like five minutes,
but I'm digging your style.
I'm going to be honest with you.
I like...I'm already learning something.
I haven't even picked up a camera yet.
- However you choose to shoot food
you don't have to do this like,
like Pinterest level where
it like is looking absolutely perfect.
You can make it like messy, loud.
You can make it like whatever you think is best
based on like what you think
the people at your restaurant
are looking for it.
You want to just include all these little details so
that people are excited.
And just like, you're excited
I want to be able to help us translate that with food.
Tell me about this restaurant?
What inspired it?
What are the main culinary principles?
What are thing...What are flavors
and tastes that I'm looking forward
to seeing if the next time when the Atlanta airport
which is actually in like two weeks, so.
- "Chicken and Beer," it's so simple.
It's one of those things where yes
it's just chicken and beer
but how do you expand this and make it a complex restaurant?
Because you add so many different things.
There are a lot of different beers
and there's a lot of different ways
that you can cook chicken.
So while we were talking about
there are certain great songs in the world
that no matter when you hear 'em
you kind of remember what you were doing in your life
during that timeframe.
That's how I feel a great restaurant should be.
A great food should be.
And that's what "Chicken and Beer" is all about.
And who the hell would have thought
a third album that
you know, went triple platinum will turn
into an actual restaurant.
So that just lets you know, sky's the limit.
Go after your dreams,
continue to learn,
continue to evolve.
If you don't evolve, you'll evaporate.
Have you ever heard that?
- No. And I'll take it.
- Don't evaporate.
Continue to learn.
- I have some little things to show you
to like make sure the textures look good.
The colors look good.
And we're focusing on our light, but-
- All right. - Let's get started.
- I love it. I can't wait, man.
Let me grab my little camera.
Hold on a second. - Yeah.
- Hold on.
Okay guys.
Here's my Canon. I'm ready.
(Aundre laughs)
Now listen, can you take like chicken wings?
Like can I take some pictures
of some chicken wings with this thing 'cause-
- I feel like you could film
the next 10 fast and furious movies with that.
(Chris laughing)
- Hell, yeah.
- To take great food photography
your first step is just understanding your camera.
I know you shoot on a Canon already.
I also have one here. - Yeah.
- And you don't really shoot the 50 millimeter.
Do you know what the aperture of that lens is?
- 1.2.
- 1.2. Oh we have the same one.
Great.
- I knew you were going to try and test me.
See, I know what I'm talking about.
- It's no test.
I just want to know so I can explain it.
Our main focus when we're shooting the food
is our aperture.
Aperture essentially, is how much light the camera lets in.
And the bigger the hole is
the more light they let in
and the more depth you'll get.
Number two is how quickly the shutter opens and closes.
We're less worried about that
'cause the food's not going anywhere unless you eat it.
- I'm a manual guy by the way.
I try to do it as much
because then you continue to learn just like we started
off talking about
when you put it in the manual
it forces you to learn every single detail
of all of the specifics.
So I love manual mode.
- You never want your shutter speed
to be less in the inverse of the focal length.
This lens is 50 millimeters.
So you do not want your shutter speed to be any lower
than a 50th of a second.
- So this is food photography
or all photography.
- All photography but food specifically because with food
since the food will not be moving and you'll be moving.
If there is, if you move it all will be really obvious.
- Got it. That's good to know.
- There's essentially three different ways
to take good food photos.
There's overhead, which you're looking at right here.
And so for overhead,
you can do like little patterns
or this is good for like soups, grits.
I know that you have grits there
and Southern food in generals.
There's a lot of really good texture
in the Mac and cheese, in the waffle and the chicken.
And so we're actually going to spend most of our time shooting
at a lower angle
and really focusing on the texture that we want.
The thing I want to ask you
is where's the light coming from in the room?
Like where are the windows?
- Now the light is right here to the front of me,
for the most part.
- Food doesn't move,
and sometimes the light moves.
So you need to be able to add or reduce light.
The white side adds light and the black side cuts it.
Just adding a subtle piece of white to bounce it
is a much more helpful thing that you want to do.
- See, this is interesting. - Honestly.
- This is the stuff I need to know.
We're getting somewhere, man.
I'm loving it.
- So we have two different color plates here.
We have like a smaller plates that are like a deep blue.
And then we have this like kind of soft gray here.
For the most part,
Southern food is kind of warm colored
and that's a little bit softer.
And so I think it's really important
like if you look at how this plate lays on the table
that we have appropriate contrast.
If we were to put grits on this
you wouldn't be able to see the detail as much.
Like let's say it's served in like a bowl style,
whatever, like the chicken and waffles in the restaurant.
It'll look appetizing 'cause you're plating it there.
But if I were to photograph the chicken with the bowl style,
it's going to be hard to see the texture of the chicken.
It's going to be hard to see the texture
of the waffle without shooting it from above.
And if I shoot it from above
then I don't get that same drizzle of the syrup coming down.
I don't get that texture of (indistinct)
when you look at like the differences between the
the breading of the chicken and the waffle
like there's a lot that's missed there
and so that detail's important.
- All right, look what I just pulled out of the oven.
Check this out.
Southern hospitality itself. - Okay
- This is "Chicken and Beers" finest.
This is pretty much the signature dish.
You got your chicken,
you got your biscuit
you got your greens
and of course the sweet potatoes,
all just made with perfection
and made with all types of love.
If your food isn't cooked with love and affection
then I don't want it.
- I don't want it either.
- So what the hell do you have front of you?
- And, so we got some collards,
we got some mashed potatoes, cole slaw,
we got some chicken and waffles,
got some black-eyed peas and some sausage gravy.
I know when we first think about waffles.
So I'm turning it actually to the more toasted side,
so that when I place it down
and I put chicken on top of it,
you can see it more easily.
- That chicken looks a little dry, bro.
Yeah. I mean, we had it (laughing)
- I mean, listen.
It looks like you got to eat that chicken
in the rain my brother.
I don't know what you going to do about that.
- Oh, man.
- But let's finish the lesson
and we'll figure it out later.
- The first thing I want to point out is
as you're looking at this
since it's on the smaller plate, you'll see immediately
that the waffle is taken up the whole plate.
So when we're doing portrait photography
you never want to have your subjects
shoulders take up the whole photo
it's like a mugshot.
You don't know how big they are.
You have no sense of size.
So everything just seems too large.
And that's not good when you're shooting people
But food,large and(indistinct) - Yeah.
- I would love if you could just slide the chicken
to a...Just a little bit to a corner
of the waffle, a little more
of the corner so I could see more of that waffle.
- Is that better?
- Yeah. Oh see, you've got it right there.
You see that Mac and cheese.
That's a really lovely plate color.
- Yeah. contrast and compliment.
- Yeah. As a quick example.
I take this avocado
and we placed it on this plate.
Your ability to see the details a lot worse
than over here.
- If you don't mind for a second, I'm going to take a couple
of test shots just to see what I'm looking like.
(soft screams) (camera shots)
- You're at a halfway angle
right now, Chris. - Yeah.
- And so I either want you to be completely above it
or I want you to meet it at your eye level.
Like almost think about the eye level of a child, right?
A child seeing this food for the first time.
They wanna...They'd get down.
They look right at the thing.
Almost like they're about to grab it.
- Right? How's that? - Yup.
That's good. That's good.
(camera shot)
(soft screams)
Basically what my goal is, this tripod is to
show you how these angles are different.
So here we were, you were doing this before.
It was kind of an in-between angle where it's a little high
but you're not really seeing a ton. Right?
And so what I would actually want you to do
is to get a little bit lower.
Now, all of a sudden
you can really see these ridges and details.
Oh wow.
See your self's looking good.
- And you have a good,
you have good background, good texture.
Let me see what else.
Let me see that...The catfish again.
- Of course, man.
Expect nothing less from me.
This is what I do for a living.
- Wow. That's beautiful.
Why don't you get, pull the catfish a little closer
to you at the end of that table.
And then just go ahead and like, even if you stand up
and just give it a little bit of squat.
Get nice and close.
I like that angle you're choosing so much,
that fish is wide, right?
I want you to shoot
so that instead of shooting it like this,
side to side
I want to shoot it so that I see the,
the front of the fish. - Got you.
- I want to turn it.
You want to guide the eye of the viewer.
Yeah. That's Good. That's good.
Now just give me a slight, off.
Just put a little bit to the left
a little bit to the right, rotate that.
And yeah. Perfect. Perfect.
(camera shot)
Woo.
- Woo. Yeah. Look at that.Woo.
So just another photography thing.
Your eye I always go to the brightest part of the image.
And so if you put something super white
or super bright right in front of it's
going to be really distracting.
(camera shot)
See if you can get a little bit lower for this one.
- Okay.
- Good detail.
The chicken looks moist. Nice.
- Hey man. One of us got to have some moist chicken
(Aundre laughing)
- Look, yo, that nugget cheeses, wow.
- I've Been wanting to shoot this man.
The is lighting is perfect for it.
- Keep moving around the piece
so you can see what you think works best. Right?
- Somewhere around here It seems like the best.
- Yeah. Perfect.
Yeah. That looks beautiful
(camera shot)
- Man, This is hard work, man.
Like you said, damn.
I'm exhausted.
I only taken like five pictures so far.
I'm like, I'm ready to take a nap, man.
I don't know about you.
Goddamn.
- Let's say we are shooting a dry chicken
something else to point out.
Add a little olive oil on a brush
and just kind of tap the piece
of it to give it that glisten.
And then you take this bounce card
add a little bit of light to it.
- Yeah. It'll definitely make it glisten, I like that.
- And it just makes it just glisten up and look good.
- Food photography can make certain people
if the photo is right, eat certain kinds
of food that they never even wanted to try before.
- A hundred percent.
- A hundred percent.- - I'm confident about that.
Definitely makes you want to experiment, man.
Listen, man, thank you for opening my eyes
and I've already learned something
I'm extremely appreciative
and I've gained a lot of insight
into exactly what I was so confused about
before we had this session.
- I think the best photos are the ones you take
of the people you love.
It's made with love and you shoot it with love
it can't lose.
- You took the words out of my mouth, man.
Thank you very much for this.
The future looks bright.
And the lighting looks bright
for all of the food that I will be shooting.
- Absolutely. I look forward to it.
I'm ardently following Ludacris on Instagram.
So let's see what happens next.
- Hell yeah, my man.(claps)
Explore your creativity at Skillshare.
(upbeat music)