Pro Tip: Food Photography
As the days grow colder here in the U.S. and you find your days being stuck indoors, don’t become uninspired. If you or someone you know has a gift for making mouth-watering meals and desserts, be creative in the kitchen with your camera!
Over the years, our editors have found some really beautiful culinary creations on Webshots, but unfortunately often times we cannot feature them because the images are either blurry, too dark or just have unattractive backgrounds. Food photography can be challenging, but using some simple principles of composition, lighting and selective focusing, you too can build a stunning collection of delicious edibles from scratch.
As a starting point, we would first suggest browsing the photos in your favorite cookbooks or food related magazines. Make note of what photos you like and don’t like. Pay close attention to the background, is it simply plain or in a more realistic setting and is the lighting more flat or more dramatic. These are all things to just keep in mind for when an opportunity presents itself. So much about designing a still life starts with taking time to plan and imagine what you want to accomplish.
Keep the background simple or real – don’t clutter the scene with too many props that would otherwise be distracting. Your food should be the number one subject in the scene.
Style your food
The site Food Geeks offers some great food styling tips.
- “Try to cut foods in somewhat geometric shapes for a more professional presentation.
- Arrange items on plate in a manner that showcases the strengths of a dish and its high-value ingredients.
- Garnish the dish to enhance the color. Adding chopped parsley gives spaghetti green specks that bring out the red color of the sauce. Adding a lemon wedge to a glass of iced tea takes a drab glass of brown liquid and gives it some juice. Or, consider ladling a sauce on the plate underneath the food, or over the items on the plate.”
Use Attractive Dishes and Cutlery
Let’s say you are baking your Grandmother’s famous apple pie. Dress up your shot with attractive silverware and dishes, put away the plastic cups and forks.
Use Supportive Props – buy a couple extra apples and / or cinnamon sticks to sit next to your pie.
The secret to creating a tasteful image of food is to make it look as delicious as possible. Remember, you’re not just photographing an apple pie, you’re photographing Grandma’s Famous Apple Pie.
Once the set is staged, it’s time to arrange the lighting. The lighting doesn’t need to be complicated. You can use a simple clamp light and diffusion material or natural light and a reflecting card. Play with the lighting to achieve the desired look you’re going for.
Visit these articles in the Webshots Blog for more information about lighting, reflector cards and diffused lighting.
We highly recommend using a tripod so you can make subtle changes between frames while keeping your shots steady.
Get close, but not physically too close to the subject. You can get super close to your subject by using a macro setting on the lens, but the trade off will be a very shallow depth of field. In other words, if you focus on the front of the pie, the middle and back of the pie will be very blurry.
We prefer to not shoot food using the macro setting, but instead backing 2-3 feet away from the subject and zoom in. Also, we prefer using the aperture priority setting for better control of the depth of field.
However, either technique will do, it’s simply a subjective call on your part.
Finally, after the photo has been downloaded to the computer, you might try applying different digital filters for effect. Sometimes adding a warming filter or just adding a little contrast to the image will give the photo a more professional look.
With the holidays fast approaching, we are looking forward to seeing fresh photos of delicious desserts and meals. If this article has inspired you to put on your apron and photograph something tasty, we’d like to encourage you to share your creation with everyone! Post your links below!
