How To: Photograph Food
Whether you are filming your first food documentary or trying to step up your Instagram game, food photography can be very difficult to get right. Many times, you only have one chance to get the shot depending on temperature and timeframe.
What you will need
· Food (Hopefully you have many backups of the same subject)
· Large window or natural light source
· Some type of diffusion material; a bedsheet, shower curtain, laundry sheets, etc.
· A white material for bouncing light; white piece of paper, use of walls, t shirt, etc.
· A dark material for cutting light; black piece of paper, dark cloth, book, etc.
· Textured materials: Wooden table, table clothes, napkins, etc.
· Color contrast: Complimentary or contrasting colors that will make your subject pop!
· INSPIRATION!
Let’s Do This!
1. First step is to pick the dish or item you wish to photograph. You will want to take note of every color on this dish, every texture, and anything else this dish will involve such as steam, smoke, melty gooey, etc. Once you pick your subject, you will want to find something similar in color to put in your frame as you set up your lighting.
Pro Tip: If the dish is extremely hot or heat involved, keep a torch or some type of heat source right off frame to add some quick reheating if needed.
2. Locate a large window or bank of windows that has a nice natural light source of daylight pouring in. Natural light will keep the color palate of the dish consistent and true to form. Any sort of tungsten lights can add a yellow/orange color cast if not balanced properly.
Hopefully this huge source of light will be soft daylight meaning the sun is not blaring in directly. Best case scenario you want a nice cloudy day or the sun just rising or setting. If this soft daylight is not available, we need to add diffusion to that light in the form of a bed sheet, shower curtain, or something similar. This will spread out the light evenly giving nice subtle shadows instead of harsh lines.
3. Once we have our soft daylight, we will want to bounce that light around to create some beautiful light on our subject on various sides. If we use the daylight to hit the back of our dish (which is recommended), we will back to put a reflective material to the front of the dish to bring out more of the details. In a tough bind, ask someone with a white t shirt to stand in front of your food or right off camera. This will lift the overall exposure of our food giving a nice soft dreamy commercial type quality.
4. Next, we will want to add some shadows to our subject. Adding contrast will add emotion, mood, and depth to our food. While we want that “well-lit” dreamy feel, we also want to add depth to show size and form. This can be achieved by placing a dark object right off frame usually directly left or right of the subject. Be careful not to cut too much of your natural daylight, but just enough to shape your food.
5. Now that your food looks breathtaking, we want to add some textures. Adding nice napkins or table clothes will let us feel connected to the people and place where the food is coming from. This adds that “people” element to our food which is the subtext of our photography. This can also be achieved by using things that relate to our subject…say if your shooting an apple, you may want to have some leaves or a knife in your photo. Something that connects our viewer to the story of our image.
Adding some other colors in the image will also help our subject pop…you may want to go to your local arts & craft store and buy some different colored paper (oranges, yellows, pinks, work great!)
6. Now that our scene is set…we want to bring in our star and really let the subject shine. The composition of the photo must draw the viewers eye directly towards want you want them to look at. Your inspiration will help you bring your food photography to life…it really takes sitting down and thinking about every angle of the image as well as the food itself.
Now you’re ready to go off on your own and take amazing food photography! Please send me your pictures!
-FFC-C
