Food can tell a story, like what time of day it is, where you are, or who you are with. It can also portray a general mood or experience.
For those looking to capture dining in the best way possible, we have prepared some of the best tips for taking photos of food, whether you are a beginner or an expert looking for more inspiration.
Prepare your food to be photo-ready
Arrange your food to show off its best features. Choose complementary surfaces and cutlery. Plate the main subject of your photo in the middle of your plate and leave room on the edges.
Style the food aesthetically
Take extra care to make sure that there are no drips or crumbs on the edges of the plates. Wipe up any oil or splashes to make sure the plate looks appetising.
But be careful of taking photos of foods that oxidise quickly. This creates a brown mess. Having an avocado that sits out for more than an hour will cause it to be browning, and the same goes for an apple.
Find the best angle
Certain recipes have a strong graphic identity and will look striking when photographed from directly above, while other subjects (tiered cakes being a good example) often need to be shot from a lower angle.
Try to get your composition in place in advance so that you can concentrate on the food when it is ready to photograph.
You also don’t really want to worry about glassware, cutlery, and napkin placement when the dish is ready.
Shoot in natural light
Natural light allows for fine distinction in a photo that a phone flash does not. If you are shooting your big baking success, take it to the window in your home that provides the most light.
If that light is harsh, consider hanging see-through curtains to filter the bright light. You can illuminate the shadowed portion of your dish with a white poster board.
To do that, have someone else hold the board so that the dish sits between it and the window, which will reflect more of the light onto the dish.
Edit to perfection
Just like you would not eat a raw potato, you should not publish your raw photos. And yes, that includes unprocessed JPG files, too.
The only two places where these images belong are either your photo library, as they wait to be edited, or your Instagram stories, where you keep in touch with your audience with short-lived or work-in-process content.
Use premium or free photo editing software to bring your images to life and make them pop, all while keeping them as close to reality as possible. This includes fixing the white balance, adjusting brightness and contrast, increasing saturation, and any other edits your photography style requires.