8 Easy Food Photography Tips
#1 – Lighting Is Key
Bad lighting can make the most delicious of food look dull and unappetising, so it’s important to get it right. The good news is that snapping your dish in natural light will capture it in its best form. Use windows and doors for a free source of back and side light that will create dimension, highlighting the textures in the food… win!
Scoopshooter: Katie Fitzgerald
#2 – Minimize Clutter
There’s nothing worse than your beautifully iced cupcake being outshone by the pile of paperwork and clutter on the table behind it. Instead, whack on your favourite fresh tablecloth and add some props from around your home like crockery, flowers or some silverware. It’ll add a personal touch and contribute to the mood of your pic.
Scoopshooter: Liv
#3 – Vary The Background
Keep it simple with a kitchen top or a wooden table, it looks a lot better than being sat on the sofa, cake in hand, dog roaming in the distance. Mix it up by all means, but let the food do the talking and make sure the setting is fitting.
Scoopshooter: Cesar Vieira
#4 – Make It Look Its Best
You wouldn’t feel your best for a picture all spotty and bruised… the same applies to your food. Quirkiness is good, we love quirkiness, be-it an oddly shaped veg or an oversized crisp, but bruising or finger marks (or even finger nail marks, there’s always at least one apple in fruit bowl thats been a victim of finger nails) won’t photograph so well or look appetising, so make sure you position your food to cover the unsightly imperfections.
Scoopshooter – Marlon Rayos
#5 – Vary Your Camera Angle
Angles, angles, angles. Angles are everything when it comes to nailing your shot, so play around until you get it right. Experiment with pictures taken overhead, beside your dish, shooting into the edge of the plate etc. See what works best and try and capture a shot in a different way to what most people would see it.
Scoopshooter: Dot Daugaard
#6 – If In Doubt, Make Your Veg Shine
If your veg is starting to wilt or your salads looking a little worse for wear, give it a spritz of water or oil to bring it back to life. Et voila, they’ll look super fresh.
#7 – Pristine Plates
One of the most important things is that the plate/bowl/dish is clean, sparkling clean. If there’s food splattered all around the edges of the bowl, the food will look unfinished and a little messy. It might not be ‘real’ but it’ll look an awfully lot better if you whip a bit of kitchen roll round the edge!
Scoopshooter: Cesar Vieira
#8 – Eating Out
If your snapping away whilst eating out, the plating and the background should all be taken care of for you. All that’s left is for you to be ok being ‘one of those people that takes a picture of their food before eating it.’