15 Food Photography Tips and Tricks
While many of us have dabbled with snapping pics of our meals for Instagram, taking high quality food photographs is a totally different challenge. Whether you’re a restaurant looking for the perfect menu shots or marketing images, a photographer looking to upgrade their skills, or a keen amateur looking to level up your Insta game, learning how to take food photos is a great way to add a new creative outlet and get some fantastic shots at the same time.
In this article, we’ve come up with 15 of our favourite quickfire food photography tips and tricks that you can use to take high quality, creative food shots.
1. Use natural light, or soft artificial light
When it comes to taking photos of food, high quality natural light is a great option. Try and shoot by a large window in daylight. If you can’t, use soft artificial light – never your camera’s flash.
2. Use different heights in your composition
When you’re looking at your composition for food photography, don’t be afraid to experiment with different heights. Try raising up different dishes to give your shots a sense of depth.
3. Add negative space to draw the eye
With food compositions, you don’t always have to keep adding more to the image. Negative space can be a great way to draw the eye towards the central subject of your image. Experiment with leaving areas of the composition empty to see how that affects your overall frame.
4. Use a tripod
A tripod is a must for high quality food photography – you need to be able to set up your frame and ensure that your camera won’t move or slip.
5. Properly frame the shot
Food photography is all about the frame. It’s vital to make sure you’ve set up the frame of your shot properly, with the composition just how you want it.
6. Choose your angle
With food photography, side on or top down shots are very common, but you can experiment with a wide range of other angles to best show off the food you’re photographing.
7. Use stand-in food to set up your shots
When you’re working with food, it’ll always look best when it’s fresh. So, it’s a good idea to set up your shots, composition and framing using stand-in food. Prepare one version of your dish, use that to frame the shot, and then use a fresh version for your final images.
8. Dress the composition with props
Using props in the foreground and background of your image is a great way to tell a story and bring out the narrative of your image – whether that’s raw ingredients, plates, cutlery or just sauces or other dressing.
9. Modify the light
Use diffusers to soften harsh sunlight and even out the shadows of your image. You can also use black card as blockers to create a darker area of your image, and white card as fillers to lighten areas up.
10. Try overhead shots
Overhead shots are a great way to really show the food that you’re photographing in the best possible light – capturing the texture, depth and colours of everything in the image.
11. Experiment with interesting patterns and colours
Don’t just use plain white backgrounds, whether that’s plates, bowls or tablecloths. Use different patterns and colours to introduce interesting visuals to your food photography images.
12. Consider action-based food photography
You can experiment with including actions like pouring or drizzling in your food photography. For example, if you’re photographing a coffee, why not try and capture milk being poured into the cup.
13. Look for inspiration from other disciplines
Seek inspiration in styles of photography outside of food – or even from painting, the natural world, or other areas. Creative inspiration can be found in surprising places!
14. Add creativity or depth with chopping boards
Pay attention to every aspect of your shots – if you’re laying food on chopping boards, make sure you’ve chosen ones intentionally that match the image.
15. Play around with colour
Colour is one of the most vital aspects of food photography – but you don’t have to stick to subtle shades. Try using bold, vibrant colours to bring out the best side of the food you’re shooting.
Looking for someone to help with your food photography needs? At Alex Bailey Photography, our studio has a fully stocked commercial kitchen that’s ready and waiting so we can get the very best shots of your food. Get in touch with us today.