We believe one eats with the eyes – Food has something immensely aesthetic and beautiful and well worth photographing if presented well.
The other day, we went into the littleflower come chocolate shop Sama-Sama in the old town of Munich – a till then ‘well-kept’ secret of my good friend Antje which she generously shared with us – thank goodness for that! Even though I am normally not really what you could call a chocolaty person, let alone a chocoholic (who, incidentally would go completely ballistic in this shop), the chocolate-chili truffles just blew me away!
However, apart from offering exceedingly good chocolaty goods, these goods are simply tiny pieces of art beautifully presented in a charming setting.
This leads me to some tips that you might want to keep in mind when photographing, or indeed preparing, food:
Food Photography Tips
- Never leave the house without a cameraYou just never know when the next delicious piece of art lurks around the corner!
- Invest in a fast lens or good macro modeIf investing in a digital SLR – leaving your compact point-and-shoot behind – don’t fall for the ‘package’ that includes the stock lens. Instead buy the body only and then invest in a faster lens separately. The Canon 50mm 1.4 or 1.8 are very good options. This will enable you to take great food shots indoors without a flash and generally when less light is available. If you would like to keep the point-and-shoots, well, you can still take great food pictures with them! Just make sure that it has a decent macro mode which will help you to create the necessary depth of field (the slightly blurry background you often find on food photography).
- Styling Your Food for PhotographyTo follow shortly…
- Food Photography Composition and Background Some people get so focused on the item they are shooting, they forget about the visual “noise” going on in their backgrounds. Pay attention to backgrounds and clear out any elements you don’t want in the final shot.
- Setting your ISO rangeThe ISO range is the digital equivalent of traditional film speed. The higher the ISO value, the faster your ‘film’, i.e. the better you can shoot images in night, indoors, or in dimly lit settings. There is a catch though – the higher you push the ISO value on your camera, the more ‘noise’ you introduce into the picture. I am sure you have seen pictures that are somehow quite ‘grainy’ and not as smooth and sharp as your usual box standard avertising pictures. A higher ISO value unfortunately reduces the picture quality. However, with a reasonably fast lens and an ISO value up to 800, you won’t notice this loss in quality much and it will enable you to shoot many more pictures in natural light settings – hence, avoiding harsh and unnatural looking flash light.
- Utilising all-natural/available light
As described above, I am a big fan of natural light photography. Ideally, I look for light that is soft, maybe falling through a thin curtain which almost creates the effect of a big studio light box. Try to avoid direct light as it throws harsh shadows across the food. Don’t ever use direct flash for food images! If you have to use an additional source of light, try to point your flash upwards and bounce it on the ceiling and/or use a diffuser to soften the flash light.
- Colour balancingVery often you’ll find that your pictures will have a slightly orange or blue cast. You can relatively easily amend this either in the camera or in an image processing program. This is particularly a problem for people who shoot indoors under artificial lighting. See note about why I like natural light.
I hope this helps some of you who are just starting out with food photography, I’m also happy to (attempt to) answer any technical questions you might have in relation to shots you might have come across – mine or otherwise.
