Food Photography: Ewedu and Yellow Pepper

I’ve been pleased and humbled by the comments and email responses on previous Food Photography posts here and I’m delighted to share more of my work with you. Inspired by an image on Pinterest, I decided to do this shoot with yellow pepper and a fork. I was taken by the simplicity of the concept; minimalist with strong contrast, and the clarity of the message.

Yellow Scotch Bonnet Peppers Isolated on Black background with stainless metal fork for Nigerian and West African cooking, dark food photography and rustic concept

Yellow Scotch Bonnet Peppers Isolated on Black background with green leafy vegetable spinach in background for Nigerian and West African cooking, dark food photography and rustic concept

Yellow Scotch Bonnet Peppers Isolated on Black background for Nigerian and west African cuisine and dark food photography

Getting the perfect image takes time, practice, a lot of shots from different angles and of-course playing with the light and composition. Editing in Adobe Lightroom and Photoshop also goes a long way to clean up images and make colours really stand out. I tried to take a few top view shots similar to my Rice and Stew shoot with Ataroda (Scottish bonnet)

resh green vegetable spinach pumpkin leaves or Nigerian Ugwu on vintage wooden chopping board with knife isolated on dark background for rustic cooking concept for local Market

It is important to me to make rich images while spending as little money as possible, so I threw in the old chopping board and our kitchen knife to give the set a rustic look. Finally, I threw in the Ewedu; it was lush, glossy and green, and gave a natural feel of freshness to the set.

Overall, I am pleased with the outcome. I’m hoping to diversify my dark food photography with new black surfaces, say glossy reflecting surfaces or black wooden surfaces, depending on what I can find for cheap.

To be honest, images of Nigerian food aren’t in high demand on Shutterstock; nationally and globally. I do these food shoots primarily for enjoyment. However, I made a few sales from my Okro Shoot and the Stew shoot so it may not be a complete waste of time and effort over all.

Predicting the image market is hard, principally because it is global. I will never understand why someone in Peru bought an image of Kpomo, or the one in Brazil that bought my image of Ogbono. The image market is dynamic and I think some buyers don’t know what they want to buy until they see it.

Related: Food Photography: Okra Soup

I think it is smart to keep an eye out for “saleable” image concepts with rich compositions while staying true to your own creative direction. Keep this in mind; someone out there wants to buy an image you have, even when you don’t think it is worth much. Keep shooting…for the stars!

If would like to make a little money from photography, you should sign up with Shutterstock here. If you have any questions or comments, I’m happy to help in the comment section.

Thank you for reading!
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