Ultimate Food Photography Tips

# 1 The light and the dramatization of the food

The most important thing  to take under consideration in food photography, is how you light the food. If you light from the sides or from behind it will look more dramatic. The shadows will improve the texture of the food. If you can, place it next to a window with good side light.

Avoid mixing diferent tipes of light like florescent in the ceiling won´t give you good results.

#2 Background

The food has to be the main character so dont let other objects to get to much atention in the scene like the tablecloth or the plate it self. Keep a simple background and use one-color plates. Let the food get all the atention.

Use neutral backgrounds and with sandy tones. The sandy tones make the food shine but if you can´t, try to use opposite color palettes in the background and in the food you are photographing.  For example, some tomatos could be set in a light green bowl and  they will stand out very good.

#3 Play with the angles

Dont take only one photo. The digital world has the advantage that the try, does not cost anything so move around and look for different angles. From the side, from the top or from wherever you want.

Come close with the food, and take notice that the food wont last fresh too long so if you are cocking at home, prepare the plates and the table along with the ligting you want first. When you have everything ready, prepare the dish and start shooting.

#4 Use every tool at your reach

The handling tools are very usefull. Cooking calipers, brushers, sprays  or any tool that allows you to manipulate the food will improve it easily allowing you to place every piece of the dish in the perfect place to make a piece of art out of it and this tools will do a clean job.

A common photographer trick is to use a spray water bottle to make little drops in certain places of some tipes of food to make it look more fresh.

And of course dont forget about the new technologies like photoshop or Instagram. I fact Instagram is one of the places where more food pictures are shared on line.

Use every tool at your reach and make the food shine in colour.

#5 Don´t cook the food much

If you are at home is much better to take the pictures when the food is not yet cooked. The vegetables for example sometimes lose colour when cooked too much. You will get better results when using food that is been cooked very little.

Meat and fish do matter. The turkey, for example, gets smaller when cooked too much. We have to try to make it look as good as possible.

#6 The ingredients have to be seen

If you want that soup, that stew or that sanwich to stand out the picture there are some tricks photographers use for everything they shoot.

For example for soups, how to stop the ingredients to sink in to the liquid so they can be seen? Well you can use mash potato or other elements in the bottom of the plate so the ingredients half step out the water. 

Normally, sandwich are photograph placing all it components jumping out the bread. But when you go to the restaurant, they dont look the same do they? They look much smaller and plain.

Try to move the brread and the ingredients to make it show off to the camera.

#7 Drinks

Is much better to dilute the drink before taking the photo specially the dark drinks so they dont look so dim. Applying some movement is a good idea specially because drinks are not very gratefull unless they are very elaborate cocktails with nice garnishes.

If they are capture when been serve and with good light, they can have much more liveliness. 

Of course lots of practice and follow the work of good photographers will help you to take amazing pictures of food.