Food photography may be easier than you think. I’ll share a few of my tips to get you started on it.
During the holiday season I find myself taking more food related photos than usual. Some are staged photos, such as this collage of photos below. These photos show the cookies I made today but they also help to tell the story of the photos. I did some Christmas baking but this year I tried a paleo/keto friendly recipe (which turned out awesome BTW). Including something into your background or foreground can help to explain who/what/when/where. The top photo helps to explain “what” type of cookie it is, as it is placed overtop of one of my paleo magazines. For some visual interest (texture) around the cookie I placed a material scrap that I had picked up at a garage sale awhile back. I keep a drawer in my hutch with scraps of material I find for free (or very cheaply priced).
The second photo is me, holding one of the cookies in front of our tree. It tells you that it is the holiday season, is in my home, and as I’m holding out the cookie with the focus on it rather than my face, it tells you that the cookie is of importance, is the focal intent of the photo. The middle and bottom photos include some of the background to help show where the photos were taken and when (Christmas time).
The next collage of photos tells the story of “what” and “where”, when baking in my kitchen. Capturing a wider area of background includes more details from my kitchen. This is more important to me than worrying about how small my kitchen looks or how cluttered and messy it is and instead the focus is to take some candid shots to document the process of baking the cookies and will be a great visual reminder in the future as I look back on these photos. We will move at some point in the coming years, and also the decor changes (I used to have red accents but switched to orange a few years back) so its fun to look back and see photos of your home, remembering how it used to look.
Indoor lighting can be tricky. During the day, if there is some daylight coming through the windows, I will bump up the ISO as much as needed to obtain a good exposure, and also will open a door wide to allow some light in (even in winter I will do this as I think it’s worth it for everyone to freeze for a few minutes while I get my photo LOL) but if not possible, then I will use a speedlight, bouncing it off to the side or behind me. I don’t overly worry about the lighting, about getting the “perfect” shot because these photos are going to mean something to myself and my family; no one is going to care about the technical perfection of the image. Even a flashlight, videolight, etc can provide a bit of needed light, especially when photographing a tighter shot, coming in for a close-up.
Coming in a bit closer, putting the primary focus onto the food can be achieved in a few different ways. You can photograph from different angles or you may add a backdrop. I like to use fabric/texture pieces but also, paper can be used. As a traditional paper scrapper for years before switching to digital scrapbooking, I had amassed a huge amount of paper. I often grab a piece for a backdrop, propping it up against something or clipping it to a small backdrop stand I have for macro photography. If you’d like to see the small stand I use, here’s the amazon link. A stand is not needed, you will find plenty of areas around your home to prop/secure a backdrop (even taping a lightweight paper or fabric on the wall will work) but if you like to take a lot of indoor macro photos, you might enjoy having a very small stand that you can easily store when not in use.
https://www.amazon.ca/gp/product/B01LLA45IA/ref=oh_aui_search_detailpage?ie=UTF8&psc=1
For the close-up, I used crumpled tissue paper to place the cookies onto and placed a christmas decoration behind it. For the bottom photo, the focus was on the recipe print-out.
During the holiday season, try taking some photos of the food, taking both some wide and tighter shots, have fun with different angles and see what you have on hand to provide some interesting backdrops and texture.
flowersgal says
Interesting article, Rae. Some great suggestions and photos. I, too, enjoy food photos and this will help me rethink different ways to do them when I am at home and can stage them. Most of mine, however, tend to be from restaurants when we travel. I’ll have to see what I can apply to vary them a bit. Since the food is usually the star, I tend to focus tightly on it and eliminate as much clutter as possible.
Angela Toucan says
thank you, this is really interesting and I’m looking forward to trying out some of your tips.