How to Take Food Pictures Like a Pro

How to Take Food Pictures Like a Pro

  
 

Since the sprouting of social media and apps on our handheld devices, food photography has spread like wildfire. It is a good thing because we get to appreciate our food more and tell stories of where we ate and how our experience was. Food photography has become a powerful tool to share our gastronomical adventures and has enabled foodie bloggers, restaurants and just the ordinary foodie to take snaps of their food.
 
Not everyone can take fantastic foodie photos. If you are one of those who struggle with taking artistic photos of their food, we have tips for you.

1. Turn off the flash and embrace natural lighting.

Using a flash especially from a smartphone can unevenly distribute light to the object you are focusing on. The resulting image is overexposed, too blue in hue or just plain unnatural. Find a natural light source, which is why daytime photos are the best especially in well-lit areas. Restaurants with big windows, white walls and just bright white lighting makes fantastic places to snap food.
 

2. Clean/wipe your phone’s camera lens.

Sometimes the solution is simple to address blurry images—WIPE YOUR LENS! A clean lens will go a long way.
 

3. Get closer or take a shot from the top.

Experimenting with angles will also allow you to find the best angles for your food subject. Getting closer to focus on the details of a dish will turn out fantastic and will make the image look more appetizing. As another choice, you can also aim to shoot from the top to compose a picturesque view of what’s on the table.

 
 

4. Add props like plants, mason jars, a book or flowers.

A touch of flora and fauna can go a long way. It helps brighten the image and add a pop of color. Mason jars can with or without flowers can add a rustic feel to the image, same goes to books.

5. Steady your hands and tap to focus.

Before hitting that shutter button, make sure your hands are steady and you have already tapped the image to focus on. Otherwise you’ll get a blurry and out-of-focus shot of your subject.
 

6. Use photo apps to quickly add filters to your image.

Play around with apps that can edit your photos and provide filters. Favorites these days are Snapseed, VSCO and Instagram.
 

7. Play around with decorating your plate or table for a nice presentation of your food.

Move around items surrounding your subject or play around with the plating to find out which is the best arrangement for that winner shot.
 

8. Take a photo of a clean plate but a bite or two is fine.

Make sure your plate is clean but a bite or two is okay because of the natural feel to the food image. Besides, for some food, the photos look more appetizing when you can see what’s inside like a burger, or the inside of a cake.
 

9. Avoid overcrowding.

A full plate or table can look unappetizing. Try a minimalist arrangement and focus, focus, focus!
 

10.Tilt-shift like a pro!

Maximize the tilt-shif feature of your photography apps by utilizing the tilt-shift. This will give you a bokeh or blurred background with a focused foreground.
 

No matter what your objective is for taking snaps of food, practice makes perfect. Keep shooting and experiementing until you find which technique works perfect for you. If all else fails, you have smartphone photography apps to post-process your images to make them more presentable. Just remember the golden rule-- good lighting always produce the best photos. 

Enjoy!