Tag Archives: Food lighting

The simple secrets behind good food photography

Food for Her World Vietnam magazine.

Food for Her World Vietnam magazine.
Food styling by Dang Phuong
Photography by Mads

Food for the World Vietnam magazine. Photography by Mads • on FlickrExternal link - opens new tab/page

We all love good looking food…

Food photography? So, what makes it look really good? I love to cook and make tasty food. But, great cooks also have a skill with presentation. It is the presentation which really makes great food shots too.

Food photography seems to be centred on three things – good looking food composition; great light and picking the right focus/centre of interest. Duh! Wait a minute, isn’t that pretty much photography summed up all over? OK, I jest. There are some specific ideas and techniques involved. Good food photography seems to require a particular approach.

Here are some introductory points for good food photography. You should look to achieve…

  • Experience with small-sized and table-top compositions.
  • A working knowledge of lighting at the table-top scale.
  • Simple natural light from one source (window).
  • Able to use reflectors/black cards to shape the light.
  • Simple centre of interest in the shot.
  • Carefully chosen depth of field.
  • Very simple, but rich backgrounds.

And with the food itself…

  • Natural and where possible bright colours.
  • The colour mix should work together.
  • Avoid odd clashes of colour.
  • The food combinations should be simple and few.
  • Focus on the main interest.
  • Avoid highlight bokeh spots where possible.
  • Try to emphasis the texture of the food (lighting).
  • Use simple but eye catching cutlery and plates.
  • Avoid cluttering the shot with too much food.
  • Give the food a big/deep background.

More after this…

Book recommendation:

Food Photography:
From Snapshots to Great Shots

Simple advice on lighting including great diagrams. The pictures include camera settings. Excellent advice on setting up a table-top studio which was also inexpensive to do. Lots of tricks and techniques like the pros use. Great presentation ideas.

 

Food Photography Tips – Video

In this video we look a range of ways to look at and shoot food. It is a great introduction to food photography basics. The video uses graphic images for a broad introduction to the art of angles, framing and creating drool inducing food photos.


Damon Guy - Netkonnexion

Damon Guy (Netkonnexion)

Damon is a writer-photographer and editor of this site. He has run some major websites, a computing department and a digital image library. He started out as a trained teacher and now runs training courses in digital photography.
See also: Editors ‘Bio’.

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