Food Photography Tips
I’ve been photographing the beautiful food at the In House Kitchen in Nelson Bay for the last few months and it has been so much fun! I thought I’d compile some of the best food photography lessons I’ve learnt, to help you building your photography skills and capture your next cafe meal or home cooked masterpiece on camera !
LIGHTING
My number one tip for food photography can be summed up in two simple words - NATURAL LIGHT. If you’re shooting food, then natural light is your new best friend. To be even more specific - diffused natural light is what you really want. This just means shooting out of direct sunlight which can be very harsh and cast strong shadows in your image.
I often outside undercover shoot against a white wall on a white table - being undercover protects the scene from direct light, but the white walls bounce light back onto my subject.
If you have to shoot indoors, try positioning yourself near a window or other natural light source, and use the same technique to bounce light back onto what you’re shooting.
If you don’t have a light coloured wall to bounce light back, then a reflector, or even a large piece of white cardboard or coreflute can be useful.
ANGLES
Play with different angles - food can be shot from so many different angles, it’s one of the reasons I love shooting it. There’s not many other times you get to actually play with your food !
Try standing on a chair and shooting looking down on the table, or slightly angled to get a view across the scene. For burgers and dishes with height, try getting straight on at table level and getting all the details.
DEPTH OF FIELD
Depth of field - I love, love, love a shallow depth of field, where the foreground is in sharp focus and the background is blurred.
This is really useful in a cafe setting where you may not want the background objects visible.
However there are also times where capturing an entire dish in perfect focus is also important, for this you’ll need a smaller aperture and a slower shutter speed.
This is where having plenty of light is useful, it allows you to be flexible with your shutter speed.
DETAILS
Human interaction - Add a bit of life and movement to your photos with some human interaction - a hand holding a glass, people reaching for something on a plate or capturing the moment a drink is poured.
This is the one time where you’re allowed to play with your food!
SHOOTING INDOORS
The beautiful In House Kitchen is a beautiful spot to shoot with their clean white space and gorgeous food, but great photography is possible even in more challenging environments. When I shoot at home I use white sheets as a hanging backdrop.
Styling boards are also a really useful prop - use them as a backdrop or as reflectors.
MOVEMENT
If you want to take it one step further and really engage your audience then using movement can be a powerful tool. This video of an iced latte being poured is made up from ten images stitched together to create a gif in Photoshop.
You can find a useful tutorial for making gifs or videos from photos here: https://helpx.adobe.com/au/photoshop/how-to/make-animated-gif.html
QUESTIONS
If there’s still more you’d like to know or you have questions, I’d love to hear from you ! You can contact me here or chat to me on instagram.
Pinterest is a great source for food and photography inspiration. You can check out my food and photography boards or pin these images below to save them for future reference.
Want to learn more?
The team at Pixpa have put together 25+ tips for beginner photographers which covers everything from equipment to post-processing. Check it out here: pixpa.com/blog/photography-tips