Food photography is an exciting and, at the same time, rewarding genre. If you are thinking of getting into food photography or have even started dabbling with food photography and are looking for professional suggestions to improve, this is for you.
Choose the right kind of light
Lighting is the key to any successful food photography pursuit. It is the key to any photography. It is imperative that you choose the right kind of light to work in. Flat light creates flat 2-dimensional images. As a food photographer, you wouldn’t want to do that.
As a food photographer, you want texture, dimension, and depth in your images only that can elevate your photos from something essentially two-dimensional to 3-dimensional.
Avoid using a flash fired from your camera’s hot shoe mount. The light is unidirectional, difficult to control, and almost never results in a pleasing result.
Directional light coming in from a large window or a significant light source placed at a side of the plate of food tend to result in better images. However, you must experiment with the positioning and the number of lights.
Composition
Taking a shot from the eye level isn’t always the most forceful perspective you can use. The eye-level photography perspective is extremely cliched, and with almost everyone doing this, your images will be like every other.
Instead, play around with the perspective. Shoot from a lower perspective. Take your camera down to a lower level than you usually shoot at, and use a macro lens to focus closer. A closer focusing lens will let you capture details about a product that normal lenses won’t.
Choose to play around with your composition. Including the whole of the plate is not always necessary to get the desired effect. Sometimes capturing only a 2/3rd of the plate is more than enough to get a beautiful and compelling shot.
Invest in a food stylist
You can also use props and other elements in the scene to accentuate the shot. Food styling is an important aspect of food photography. This is a specialized job, and with due respect to your abilities as a food photographer, not all food photographers are great food stylists. They can brainstorm styling ideas that can take things to the next level. So, investing in a specialist food stylist’s services can go a long way toward adding value to your production.