Photography Backdrops – Dark & Reflective

Time for another blogging 101 post! Another backdrop post, I love dark food pictures. I’m totally drawn to them. I’m still learning so much about photography so I’m not great at the dark images, but I WANT to be.

Dark backdrops, dark room with just a bit of light trickling in from the back/side with a reflective surface create this look.

Back in September at the food conference I attended one of the speakers was a food photographer, a famous one, with TONS of experience. One of the pictures he shared was a great reflective dark image I just fell in love with. He said he got it by taking a large sheet of glass and spray painted the backside black.

Well I have 5 kids running around my house, so having a sheet of glass around isn’t very smart, and it probably won’t last long. Remember this table I replaced the glass with plastic? I had a good size sheet of plastic left, so I thought I’d give it a try!

Instead of spray painting the back though I used a black foam board underneath. That way I can try it with another color or shade at some point (part of my experimenting, not sure another color would work). I also used black foam board as the backdrop too to keep it simple, no distractions, so the reflection is the focus.

I’m also working on my lighting, while my pictures have gotten better they still look a little flat, better use of lighting will fix that. This was back/side natural light. I love the way it makes the grapefruit glow!!!

To get the effect though you need most of the room to be dark (or you won’t get a good reflection in the glass or the nice dark shadows creating texture and depth). So I use the space just inside my door so it’s only getting a bit of light (all my house lights are off of course). SO pretty!

Anyway the color and lighting make citrus great for this dark reflective style. What else do you think would look good in this style? Drippy ice cream? Drinks in clear glass? Maybe a gooey grilled cheese sandwich? what should I try next?