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Photographing food
By Lara Ferroni
I’m sitting in a café doing an odd thing. Watching someone take photos of cupcakes. What’s unusual about the scene is not that someone is taking the photos. It’s that it isn’t me clicking the shutter.
As a professional food photographer, I’m usually the one on that side of the camera, my tripod getting in the way of the waitstaff or with my family rolling their eyes at me wondering if they’ll get to take their first bite before the meal gets cold. These days however, I seem to spy others popping off shots of the delicious dishes in front of them almost as much as I am.
The sheer number of food photos on websites, blogs and photo sharing sites like Flickr is enough to feed millions of hungry eyeballs, and is growing at an enormous rate. Finding quality in those images, however, is still a bit of a challenge.
Tips for taking great photos of food
Food rarely looks appetizing when shot with a point-and-shoot digital camera on its automatic settings. A quick web search on “food photography” will return a lot of good tips: turn off your on-camera flash, shoot quickly before the food starts to wilt or congeal and get in close. These are all great tips, and will go a long way towards getting you more scrumptious looking photos. But if you are still looking for ways to improve, try some of these tips:
Simple settings and props
First, decide what detail you want to show in the food or the scene and make sure that you don’t have other distractions in the frame. If it’s the lusciousness of a chocolate swirl, its simple to do by filling the frame with just the chocolate. If it’s the overall table, back up a little, but try to only include hints of the curve of a chair, or a casually strewn napkin.
It’s far too easy to have too many props distracting from your intent yielding cluttered and chaotic photos. Props, like dishes, flatware, flowers and linens are a bit like jewelry. It’s always a good idea dress the table, but then take off at least one item before the final shot. Simple settings lead the focus to the food. For this reason, it’s also usually best to stick with white dishes and linens without a lot of ornamentation.
Shooting angle
You’ll also need to find the right angle for the dish you are shooting. Most food photos that I see are shot from about 45 degrees looking down on the dish. This is a safe angle as it is similar to what someone who is sitting down to eat the food will see. It’s familiar, and gives some dimensionality to the food.
When shooting, I almost always grab a shot at about a 45 degree angle. However, as with most photography, you are likely to find better shots with a bit of exploration.
For stacks of food, like pancakes dripping with syrup and butter, shooting directly from the side will emphasize the height of the dish. Tilting the camera away from the standard straight portrait or landscape will add a sense of motion. I often use this for shots that involve pouring or how-tos in the kitchen. For a more novel look, you can try shooting from directly overhead. The food will appear very flat and more graphic… a fun look for things that are already flat, like decorated cookies.
Continue to Part 2 (Focus, lighting & more)
Photos by Lara Ferroni ©2007 All Rights Reserved
