10 food photography tips that make your shots professional
Top tips and practical advice for mastering the art of food photography .

Food photography is an easy genre to overlook, but it’s a
field that offers a huge amount of creative possibilities, with no
shortage of attractive, varied and colorful subject matter.
It
also offers the possibility of capturing images of food professionally,
as cooking and baking are hugely popular pastimes, and there’s a steady
demand for images for magazines, books and websites.
However, to
make a success of food photography you’ll need a good understanding of
the theory and techniques involved, and you’ll have to be prepared to
put in the practice – as, with other kinds of photography, it’s often
more complicated than it looks.
Professional food photographer
Ewen Bell explores the equipment and key techniques you need in order to
shoot successful culinary images, as well as sharing a few tricks of
the trade.
1. Work in good light
The most
common mistake is trying to shoot beautiful food in bad light. Cameras
see light, not subjects, even when that subject is delicious!
Food
photography always begins with the light. The perfect light is soft,
abundant and angled. You want lots of light to play with, but you
definitely don’t want direct sunlight streaming onto the scene; it’s too
harsh and too contrasty. The best table in the restaurant has the
window seat, with bright daylight outside and only filtered light coming
through.
This scenario turns the window into a large softbox,
filling the table with useful light that offers a range of shooting
angles. The starting point is to shoot at an angle across the light
source. That angle gives sufficient contrast to reveal detail in the
scene, and brings up the colors. You don’t have to fill in the opposite
side of the scene with a bounce board, or fill-in flash, because you can
brighten underexposed areas of the raw images when you process the
files – it’s often quicker and more precise to fine-tune the raw files
than trying to get it perfect in-camera.
As you change your
angle, you create a different quality of light for the scene. The more
you shoot into the light the more contrast and drama you build. Color
richness gets reduced, blacks are hardened and some areas might even
blow out, and that’s acceptable for the purpose of style, if drama is
what you’re looking for.
Alternatively, when you change your
angle to have light coming a little more from behind you, the scene
fills in more and the contrast flattens out. By controlling the angle
at which you shoot relative to the window, you control contrast and
color as well – even when the light is very, very soft.
It won’t
matter how amazing your food looks on a plate if the light isn’t working
for you – good food in bad light makes for failed photos. In the right
light, on the other hand, almost any scene can be made to look inviting.
2. Editing your shots
The
treatment of your Raw files is just as important as the shoot. The most
natural colors often result from going easy on the saturation, or even
pulling back on it a little; if you’re struggling with color balance,
it’s likely that you have the saturation dialled up too high.
In
very flat light you may need to bump contrast a little in order to give
hardness to edges – adding contrast only at the blacks end of the
histogram will help to preserve tones elsewhere in the scene.
Additionally,
shadow detail can be lifted to balance out the scene. Be sure to use
selective adjustments to add exposure or more shadow detail if critical
elements are lost in shade.
3. Consider flash
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The
problem with relying on natural light when shooting food is that it
isn’t always that natural. Color casts can be thrown across the scene by
trees outside, interior lights can add color spots to the room, and the
movement of clouds throughout the day can cause dramatic changes to
contrast and color temperatures.
You’ll
never get a nice, clean white light unless you bring your own. Flash
gear will bring consistency to your photography and reduce processing
effort. Reliable strobes deliver the exact color and quantity of light
from one frame to the next. If you’re shooting content across several
days but need the look and feel of each frame to be consistent, then
studio flash is the way to go.
Aside
from being very practical and reliable, once you get your flash gear
under control you’re freed up to concentrate on your creativity. Scale
is critical here. Just as we enjoy soft, abundant, angled light in the
window seat of a restaurant, we try to achieve that same result in the
studio.
A
large softbox is required, powered by a sufficiently capable light
source. 100W of flash is more than enough to shoot a table scene and
pull out moments of inspiration within it.
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Battery-powered
flashguns can do the job, but you’ll burn through the batteries, and
they’re painfully slow to regenerate as the power drains. For the same
price as a decent flashgun you can buy monoblock kits that offer a
plug-in unit with a inbuilt receiver; just connect to the mains power
and slip the trigger unit onto your camera, and you’re ready to go.
A
reliable light source is essential, and so is consideration for how you
want to shape the light. Softboxes for food photography should be very
large, and offer generous amounts of internal diffusion. You need to get
the softbox close to the scene, as close as possible to keep the light
as diffused as possible.
If your light-shaping boxes are not soft
enough, and too much contrast is coming through to the scene, simply
add an additional diffusing screen between the food and the flash.
4. Stop motion
Consistent lighting from studio flash gear is perfect for making short
stop-motion clips of the step-by-step assembly or presentation of a dish.
Lock down the camera on a tripod, and lock off the focus and exposure
– you need these to be the same for every scene. Make small adjustments
between frames to mimic a scene in motion.
Process the raw files to perfection before you output the individual
frames, then bring the stills into your video-editing tool, and use soft
transitions to smooth the motion.
5. All the magic happens at 50mm
The field of view from a 50mm lens is the sweet spot for still-life
photography, including food. As your field of view goes wider, such as 35mm,
you start getting perspective issues, and the wider you shoot the closer you
need to get, which can further exaggerate perspective. It also gets difficult
to control the background with a wider lens; you don’t always want the rest of
the room to be drawn into the frame.
Narrowing the field of view with a telephoto lens can be a problem too.
Longer focal lengths, such as 100mm, will compress the scene – you can lose the
sense of depth, and your compositions can look flat. Longer lenses also create
logistical problems when you’re working in confined spaces, as you may not have
the room to step back far enough for a shot.
Everything works much better when you start with 50mm. If you’re shooting
on a full-frame sensor the other advantage of 50mm is that there are lots of
affordable primes on the market.
An aperture of f/2 is ideal, and it’s tempting to use a 24-70mm f/2.8 if
you already have one, but then you won’t be t enjoying the full effect of a
prime lens at f/2 – and you also have to deal with a big, clunky lens which can
be a drag on your creative process.
The equivalent lens for APS-C cameras is a 35mm f/1.4, or for micro four
thirds cameras a 25mm f/1.4. the smaller your camera sensor, the greater the
depth of field you get at a given f-stop, so you may want to experiment with
going all the way to f/1.4 instead of f/2 with these smaller camera bodies. The
difference between f/2 and f/2.8 is significant for background bokeh, and it’s
even more pronounced at f/4.
Shooting shallow is about bringing attention to one element in the scene,
and the degree to which you melt away the rest of the scene is essential to
your composition.
Your depth of field expands as you step back from the subject too, so the
bigger the scene you shoot at 50mm, the further south you may have to drop the
f-stop to get the desired degree of blur.
Shooting at f/4 might look dramatic when your frame is the size of a tea
cup, but it offers zero impact once you step back to capture a full table
setting.
6. Consider scale
We have a tendency, when we have a lens in hand, to keep stepping inwards,
trying to tighten the composition by cutting out all the things we don’t want
in the scene. This is a reductive process. We end up with very simplistic
compositions, and no idea where we went wrong.
The trick to building richer and more detailed compositions with still life
and food is to step back and bring more into the frame, not less. It’s not just
a matter of a different lens, it’s a different perspective; thinking bigger is
better. We get obsessed with what’s on the plate, without realising that
there’s a bigger scene on offer.
As you step back a little you find yourself shooting the table, not the
dish. Now you have options for your compositions. Step back a little further
and you have a restaurant, not just the table. At each level of scale you get
different options for composition.
Stepping back lets you put the dish into a bigger context, with room to
include a sense of place. When working in the studio, it’s a common mistake to
keep the scale small. Limiting yourself to a fraction of a bench, or a small
piece of plywood you painted to look like weathered timber, is limiting your
creativity as well.
For big results you need to think bigger than a bread box. Expanding the
scale of your shoot zone also enables you to make room for multiple dishes. One
plate offers far fewer options than two or three.
With multiples of the same dish on a table or studio bench, you create the
potential for layered compositions. As you move around you’ll find shots within
the scene, and those multiples of a dish give you multiple moments of
inspiration.
7. Include a little action
Still life doesn’t have to be still when it comes to food. Get a little
movement into the scene, and bring it to life. Capturing motion within your
scenes adds impact to good composition – for example the pouring of
liquids, steam rising off hot dishes, or simply the sprinkling of salt onto a
dish.
Additionally, the preparation of food, and the people who prepare it, are
great elements to include in a photo series. Messy is magic; a sense of the
chaos in a kitchen, or ingredients on a workbench, add interest.
8. Style the shot
Building an interesting composition requires a spectrum of approaches, with
food styling at one end and photojournalism at the other. You can either create
the exact scene you want from scratch using props and styling, or you can look
for moments within a scene that already exists in the real world; the best
results often come from a combination of the two.
Styling is a dedicated skill – on a commercial shoot the stylist can
actually earn more than the photographer. Stylists supply their props and
ideas, and typically the concept of the overall shoot rests most heavily in
their hands.
The photographer will have to take their lead, manipulate the light to
their advantage, and ensure that the final scene is technically
competent.
As a photographer, it’s a joy to work with a good stylist, because they
carry so much of the creative load. With the stylist preparing the scene,
you’re able to devote your attention to the task of finding the ideal
composition – for one person to be handling both the photography and the
styling can be demanding, as your brain is jumping between two tasks and you
may not be able to successfully complete either to your satisfaction.
When you’re shooting on location it’s important to consider how much of the
original character from the restaurant or kitchen you want to pull through into
the images. Photojournalism imperatives dictate that you reveal the nature of
your subject, while styling is an attempt to create it through art. In practice
there is always a degree of both.
I like to ‘shoot around the scene’ when I visit a restaurant or other
location. I ask the staff to set tables as they would for guests, and to
present dishes with wines poured – I want to see how they present their work.
With a fully dressed table I then start to look for elements within the
scene.
I seek out a ‘hero’, and dig out compositions that pull through multiple
elements. And then I might start styling the table a little – not a lot, just a
little. I make adjustments, I remove distractions, and I add layers to the
background. I do this with location shoots, and when working with a stylist in
the studio.
Bringing these two approaches together yields diversity in the images
you’re able to collect, and opens the door to innovative compositions that are
unexpectedly rewarding.
9. Remember to use props
The key to great food styling is having props on hand to complement the
scene. If you’re planning to shoot a lot in the studio, you’ll want to start
collecting some interesting props to spice up your scenes.
Ingredients to a recipe can be used as props, as well as crockery and
tableware. People can act as props too. Think about hands involved in the
scene, or perhaps kitchen staff handling a dish – scaling out to shoot wider
allows room to bring those props into the composition.
The right prop can add context to a scene, like a pot of tea and cups
alongside a slice of cake. Props can also be used to carefully add specific
colors to a scene that embellish the main subject.
10. Take full control
What makes food photography so different to other genres is the degree of
control you have over the subject. You can do just about anything you like to
the scene – you can even eat it! It’s easy to control the light over a scene
the size of a table, compared to shooting a full studio set or waiting for
sunrise over a landscape.
Food doesn’t have to pull a pose or deliver an expression; it sits there
and silently accepts the attention without moving. Within limits of course – do
be careful with ice cream, as it can melt in minutes if you’re not ready for
the shot.
The scale and inanimate nature of food photography means you have excellent
opportunities for composition. It’s a great genre for exploring the use of
color, perspective and repetition.
Don’t feel that you need all the colors of the rainbow jammed into a single
frame – instead try initially working with a limited color palette, and find
ways to repeat colors through the scene. And use more than one dish in your
styling, taking advantage of a bigger scale and bigger ideas.
Change your perspective as you shoot – try the top-down view, but then look
for different angles that reveal more or less of certain elements.
Food photography lends itself to tethered shooting, and it’s a good idea to
work with a laptop and tether cable when in the studio or on location. It’s a
big advantage compared to viewing on-camera only, because you get much better
feedback on subtle variations in your shots, and more accurate confirmation of
where your shallow depth of field is hitting.
Additionally, the clarity of a large laptop screen also gives you better
renderings of your compositions, complete with your preferred processing
treatment as each frame rolls off the camera. the prime rule, though, is to
always start with the light – it doesn’t matter how interesting the food is if
you don’t have good light. Aim for soft, abundant, angled light.
As you change your perspective you can also change your angle of light –
like adding salt and pepper to season a dish, changing your angle is
fine-tuning the feel of the shot.
source : digitalcameraworld.com
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