How to Capture the Perfect Food Photo
It can sometimes be difficult to find the perfect angle or lighting to take that one photo you need. That’s why we’re here to help teach how to capture the perfect food photo with some easy but effective ways to really “spice” up your food photography. You don’t need fancy equipment to be able to make yourself standout in the culinary world. Just a few adjustments, and you will be more than ready to upload your photos and catch people’s eyes everywhere.!
1. Choose your main product/object
There is nothing worse than having too many objects in a photo, your desired audience needs their attention to be grabbed straight away and know what is in the photo. You need a focus point: the item that you want to highlight. However, you also don’t want your stage to be bare. You want to be able to add simple composition to your photos without over doing it.
Placing a few objects in the foreground and background of your photos can really show the ‘story’ of the dish. For example, the simple stack of pancakes below were improved by the fork in the background, and the flour on the table while the berry compote drizzled aesthetically on the plate adds creativity to your work.
2. Don’t overwhelm your audience
A major mistake a lot of people make is trying to add too much color into the photographs as they think it will make them ‘stand-out’ more. This usually has the opposite effect! Adding too much color can distract from what you are trying to photograph. Neutral tones are better, especially for props and other minor products used in the photo. You don’t want to upstage your main product!
A colorful background is acceptable as long as it doesn’t draw the eye too much. Using contrasting colors is good too for your product. For example, chocolate cookies can be placed on a white plate to show the contrast between the dark chocolate and the white of the plate. This emphasizes the cookies and puts the main focus of the audience on them.
3. Angles to focus the product
Be creative! You can look at other food photography and see that the common shots are directly from above or from low on a table. Both are great starting points, however, it can be repetitive and remember, you are trying to make yourself stand out! Think about the size, shape, height etc. of your product. What is going to make you stand out as a creator?
You want to highlight your best qualities in both your food and photography. Do you want people to see just the product? Or do you want to tell the story of the food and include ingredients to expand the idea of your food so it’s easier to understand?
4. Lighting!!
Possibly one of the most important factors in taking a good photo is using good lighting to make your product look desirable without making it looked washed out or have too much glare on it. Natural light is good! You want to be able to position your dish with enough light surrounding it so don’t use overhead lamps or built-in flash. This often makes the photo look more artificial and can make the colors of the food look very different than they naturally are. However, you need the light to not flatten the dish.
Work with the angles you created to find the best position for your food to accentuate it. Shadows can work in your favor too and give a nice effect of the product, you don’t want a massive shadow to distract the reader but a small one, underneath the edge of the plate is always good to create some depth within the photo.
Now you have read through these quick and easy tips, hopefully you can be inspired to be more creative with your photos and take time to really improve and look back on previous photos to compare your new techniques with old ones! 😊