Over the past couple years, I have come to really love food photography! I think it stems from a love of food in general, it nourishes, comforts, and creates community. I love the challenges that cooking and baking bring and I love learning about different cultures through food. Working with fresh, beautiful ingredients means that my dish will taste good and look good. With photography, I get to help that natural beauty shine. I've picked up a couple of things that are helpful, so here are my three most essential tips for food photography!
1. Natural lighting is everything!
All of my food photography so far has been shot with natural light. I find it to be the most neutral, if you're shooting in a place with florescent or incandescent bulbs, the light will undoubtedly be more yellow or blue and this will mess with the colors of the food you're working with. Natural light can be harsh, direct sunlight through a window or you can diffuse it by rolling down a shade or shooting in a shaded spot that is near a window.
I'm very lucky to have the dining table in my home situated right near three massive windows. They give lots of beautiful natural light and it's my go-to spot when I shoot at home. Even at school, my apartment had a sliding glass door that I would shoot in front of. The following images were shot on the table at home.
2. Composition Matters!
You'd be hard-pressed to find any field of art, design, or photography that doesn't involve composition in some way. In food photography, this could be how you arrange what you're shooting, how many objects in the frame, or the background color and accessories. If a dish warrants it, I like to decorate my "set" with ingredients. Coffee beans if it has coffee in it, sifted cocoa powder, whole spices, herbs, things like that. I try to use what I have on hand, things like measuring spoons, utensils, rolling pins, or other kitchen tools.
What you include in your composition should draw your viewer in and make whatever you created look like the most delicious thing in the world. Your composition can give context. I could just photograph a pot of tea, but if I had a few shortbread cookies into the frame, the image instantly tells more of a story. The plain white background could be swapped for something more homey, but I like how clean it is and it puts the viewer's whole focus on the subject. The below image would be good as an advertisement for the teapot, for example.
A latte in the background gives more context to this image, such as the time of day or what meal this could be. Even the egg yolk running down the side and dried herbs sprinkled over the platter bring more visual interest to the image.
3. Get different perspectives!
A couple of years ago I found a book about food photography that had some really helpful information. It was called Food Photography: Pro Secrets for Styling, Lighting, and Shooting and was written by Lara Ferroni (Link here!). Her section on composition also mentioned something else that's really important, perspective. I use different perspectives to highlight different elements of what I'm making. Common ones are diner's angle (the angle you have when you sit down at a table to eat), top-down, and straight on. Straight on and top down are probably my favorites, and for any others I'm usually getting close, tight shots to highlight a specific detail.
Lighting, composition, and perspective are the three elements I think are the most vital in food photography. If you have a solid foundation in these three, your images will be promising, To go deeper, you could work with laying tables and going more into styling, learning to plate food, or paying attention to color. Food photography is so much fun for me, I love being able to capture the details of something I worked so hard to make. I hope these tips were helpful!
Thanks for reading!
xx, Hannah
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