How to Take Awesome Photos of Food

Time flies really fast and the world is becoming a more developed place where every kid has a smartphone with Internet access and everyone’s on social networks. And though Instagram really helped to through the cause of photography and let people understand the beauty of certain photography genres, it definitely made things worse for other styles.

Food photography is one of them. Food is a huge part of our daily life and this is why lately there are so many photos of it—most of them being amateur and of low quality—somehow depreciating this genre.

However, often it’s important to forget all photos of food you’ve seen on Instagram and remember how beautiful, delicate, and surprising it can be if done professionally. Check out our five essential tips to learn food photography.

Take care of the presentation

Presentation is one of the most important parts of a dish because if it looks good it probably tastes good, too. You’re definitely a lucky person if you’re simply shooting food a chef or food stylist served, but if you are planning to cook something yourself, make sure to think the way you are going to present it beforehand. You can even make a drawing of how the dish would look. And remember that it would be a bad idea to make a photo of a white plate on a white background.

Use a fast and bright lens

Since there are no long distances to the subject in food photography, you won’t need to use a wide-angle or ultra wide-angle lens. Even if you’re making a down-shot, a standard focal length lens will do. This is why using prime lenses like 28mm, 35mm, and 50mm in food photography would be a good idea. They are bright, sharp, and have great bokeh. What else do you need?

Mind the temperature

That’s right. Mind the temperature. However, we’re not talking about the food temperature but about the color temperature in your photos. The temperature of food won’t make too much difference to your photos because you can’t really convey it by image, but the color temperature will matter a lot.

Even if you make photos on a sunny day, you will need to shoot in RAW and then increase temperature while editing the photos in Lightroom. Food with a weird bluish or greenish tint seldom looks appetizing.

Shoot from the side and from above

Both down-shots and close-ups are acceptable, but the same dish may look completely different when taken either as a down-shot or close-up. Let us expound on this.

If the dish is sophisticated and presented really extravagantly, it would be better to take a down-shot of it so that the people look at it as at a drawing and can see all the details. If you take photos of soulfood and something that tastes better than it looks, we advise you to take close-ups of this dish to make it look more appetizing.

Show what’s inside

Not all food is the same and sometimes you will need to let the viewer take a peek inside of it so that they understand what they are looking at. It’s just like telling a story that would not be complete without an interesting ending, which turns all of it upside down.

We hope that this article was of help to you and we’ll be glad to answer your questions in comments. Feel free to shoot us a message!

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