Best 7 Food Photography Tips to take Attractive Food Photos

I have photographed a lot of things till date, but I would accept the fact that food photography is much more complicated than one would think. You need lots of practice and only then you will get the final result.

Today, this blog is dedicated to the food bloggers or photographers who would need the best and crisp images to make the food real, attractive and completely tempting. It is the image that would make the food look like live and so reading this will really enlighten the food bloggers to use specific steps while carrying out food photography.

For carrying out food photography, one needs good amount of expertise and experience. Thus, I would like to say to the beginners that carry out a few trial and errors with the features of the equipment and the natural light sourcing. Finally, you will learn that what adjustments are required.

I would love to share a few tips here to take great food photos. Newbies just understand that expertise will come with sheer practice and experience and so never under estimate your potentials.

You are here because you want to turn your passion of photography into something that would give you a great career punch. Yes, you can go to that level with sheer practice and smart art work. For those looking for a Guru in food photography I would suggest they should follow Steve Hensen, a popular food photographer in Seattle. You can go through his work on Steve Hensen Images. It is just awesome.

Coming back to our photography tips for attractive food shots, here’s the tricks for you to add life to your food images.

Best 7 Food Photography Tips to take Attractive Food Photos

1. A good DSLR camera would suffice

Being just a beginner you may find it hard to decide that which DSLR camera would be apt for you. Well, often the competition might be between Canon and Nikon. If you are confused over the brand then try to stick to your budget and buy a DSLR that comes within your pre decided price range. But you have to practically take the decision if you have already stepped into the world of photography.

Buy something that would be like your asset and would always support you to build your future. I would suggest that while buying DSLR you just buy a camera body and purchase the lens separately. This is because; if you have a good lens then you can get amazing result while taking food photos.

2. Don’t take the lights lightly

If you are a food photographer then my advice to you will be that don’t take the lights lightly. You should have a basic idea about how light would work in one particular shot and as per that you should make the other adjustments. For food, I would recommend that just use the natural light and there is no need to depend on flash light, lamps or over head lights.

There is no such rule that you have to take the food photo from the above. I would say that you can try different angles with your DSLR camera and see which one works the best. You can take an image from 45 degree angle; you can even try the top most position or the side angle. Move the plate and see which image looks most attractive and appealing.

 While taking the sharp image of the food item, if there are too many other props around like napkin and spoon then it might not look that appealing. In that case, you can just cover the subject leaving all the side things. But do not zoom the camera too much to the extent that one just can’t identify what the food is.

3. Get fixed lenses for food photography

I would like to share this secret to you in regards to the lenses that I use generally when I photograph foods. I personally prefer fixed lenses which are compact ones. They are smaller and faster and that I have to move close or away from the subject rather than the camera performing zoom sessions. The result for this is always great as I get complete flexibility while I am shooting.

 If you are holding a Nikon DSLR then 50mm f1.4 lens would be the best comrade. If you have a cropped format camera then perhaps a 35mm lens would not be a good choice and hence upgrading to 50mm lens would be a good decision.

4. Get the best photography equipment

When I am shooting around, most of the time I prefer using free hands. This is because; with this I get perfect levels of freedom. But sometimes when things are quite shaky I would miss my Tripod. Hence, I feel that you should be ready with a good quality DSLR tripod too. This would enhance the confidence and would provide better controls.

 I had a client who wanted to get food photographs done for her cook book. I had to use tripod in almost all the shots because that gave best results. Also, a tripod head for the tripod would be needed.

5. Using reflectors for light modifications

Depending upon the kind of effect I would need for every shot I would arrange for plain white reflectors and black reflectors. These are nothing but colored foam boards. The benefit of using the white foam board is that the light would bounce back on the subject or the plate and hence there would not be shadow effect.

In case, if I want a classy image with shadows or more of natural look then I would use black foam boards.

6. Do you love fancy sort of food photography?

If you are doing the portfolio or if you are working for a client with the food photography project then you may also have to invest in good food props. But before that you should check out which photography style you are going to adopt. A lot of props are available online and you can just invest a bit in them to enhance the effects of your shots.

I would love to share with you one of the amazing food blogs by Izy Hossack. She is just 18 years old and a complete foodie at heart. She develops amazing recipes and writes these recipes on her website Top With Cinnamon. She is also a food photographer and takes tempting shots and posts the same on her site with the recipes. You can check out a few words from her too via this video:

7. Combat the food photography challenges on your way

If you have just begun to click your DSLR for photographing food then I am sure a few of you might be disappointed with the results. If you are just doing it to post on social networking sites to make your friends jealous about what you are savoring on, then too a good click would enhance the levels of their jealousy.

If you are on your path to become a professional food blogger or food photographer then you might have come across the challenges as in the blurry images, lack of naturalness in images, photos might not look crisp and so on.

Well, when all these challenges pop up, you will have to make a few changes in the way you work. You can enhance the ISO a bit but make sure that image quality doesn’t go bad.  

While shooting you should adjust the white balance properly. Alternatively, you must choose to shoot in raw format and then later you can adjust the colors. Using the best lenses that can narrow the depth of the subject would be one of the best suggestions I can give you. 

Also, the professional food photographers use photography tweak software can make the food look like a professional product. Which photography tweak software would be best for you, I would explain you in detail in our coming blogs.

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Conclusion

So friends, do let me know how this blog was helpful to you? Food photography should be such that by just seeing the image the person seeing it should reach to the level of foodgasm! Why don’t you try a few techniques as mentioned above? I would love to hear from you in the comment section about how you liked this article.