The Ten Condiments of delicious food photography
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Lighting is key
The most important part of food photography is making sure you’re shooting your subject in great lighting. Natural light looks great, especially in mid-morning or mid-afternoon. If it’s too bright and sunny, however, this is not ideal and you’ll want to find some shade to shoot in and be weary of overexposure. If you’re inside, try to move around and find a good lighting source so you’ll be able to avoid flash, which rarely will give you the results you want. Another person’s “flashlight” feature on their camera, held further away from the subject or diffused through a napkin so that it doesn’t produce too harsh of a light, can work as a light source in a pinch.
Play with your angles
Ever see people standing on chairs at dinner to grab the perfect food shoot? Yeah, that’s going to be you next! Food photography is about playing with angles and experimenting to find the best shot. Shoot an overhead, or shoot the subject straight on, shoot upwards or downwards. Try every variation you can think of until you fall into a rhythm and know what works best for your style of food photography.
Play with your subject
A dish might be served to you hot and seemingly ready to be shot, but you may want to make a few modifications before even trying to photograph the subject. You might want to prop up the dish on a folded up napkin so that you’re able to get a better angle to see everything, or add a bit or garnish to a soup, or cut a sandwich in half so you’re able to see the inside fillings.
Find the “hero” angle
- With every dish, there’s probably one angle, the “hero” angle, where the food will photograph best from.
Think about what’s the most appealing feature of the dish—is it the toppings of an over-the-top milkshake? The meaty filling of a sandwich? And try to position your dish and camera so that the focus of the photo goes straight to the dish’s best feature. This will help you find your “hero” angle!
Fill the frame
To achieve the Atlanta Eats signature look, you’ll want to fill your frame with your subject. You can do this by shooting your photo at a close angle and making sure the frame is “filled” with the subject or other props. You can pull a drink into the corner, or a side dish to fill the frame.
Think ‘yummy’ over everything
To achieve the Atlanta Eats signature look, how “yummy” a dish looks—not how pretty it is—is ultimately the key to deciding whether a dish is Instagram feed worthy or not. You might think a photo is beautiful and composed well, but ask yourself if that dish looks mouthwatering. If not, then try again.
When editing, play with saturation, clarity, & exposure
To achieve the Atlanta Eats signature look, we don’t apply filters but instead up the saturation and clarity on most photos while also correcting any exposure or shadow/highlight issues. You can achieve these results in Photoshop or most iPhone/Android photo-editing apps like VSCO cam.
Think about your equipment
Will you shoot on a DSLR with a macro lens or an iPhone? For most of Atlanta Eats’ photos, IPhone works best and even outperforms DSLR photos. There will be less bells and whistles to learn when shooting on a phone, and you’ll never be without your camera, but a DSLR may help you achieve more details in your photography. You may also want to get a tripod if you have issues with steady hands when shooting.
Underexposed is better than overexposed
There’s nothing harder than trying to edit a blown out or overexposed photo that’s too bright and washes out some of the colors of your dish. If you’re ever shooting a photo and those are your two options, go for underexposed—a photo that’s slightly too dark—versus overexposed—a photo that’s too bright.
Get a second opinion
If you’re torn between two shots, don’t be afraid to ask for a second or third opinion before posting. Ask which shot looks yummiest before posting and more often than not, there will be a clear winner.
BURGERS
This burger photo was taken inside a dark bar/restaurant on an iPhone, but we’ve pulled the food into a brighter lit spot in order to take a better photo. This photo works because the food mostly fills the frame and the plating of the burger lets the toppings shine through.
This burger is shot in natural light with cloud coverage, allowing for minimal editing needed. It works because the food fills the frame and looks super drool-inducing, with the melted cheese.
This photo works as the burger and tots combined fill the frame. The burger was shot in natural light by DSLR camera, and although the sunlight is a little bright, with photo editing that lifts the shadows we end up getting a solid shot. A DSLR camera is often better than an iPhone in suboptimal lighting conditions.
PIZZA
Overhead shots can often work well with pizza, and the tight crop on this photo lets you get a close up of the pepperonis.
This photo is shot in natural light with cloud coverage, taken at an angle that lets you really see the toppings up close. This photo is focused and cropped in on the part of the pizza that has the most toppings.
This photo was taken in less than optimal lighting conditions and is shot with a DSLR camera, that still allowed us to get good visibility. The toppings in the foreground are in focus, letting you see the delicious toppings and melty cheese.
BARBEQUE
Ribs can be tricky to photograph. In this DSLR photo, we’ve stacked them up and topped them with Texas toast as well as added a Coca-cola bottle, pickles, and mac and cheese into other areas of the photo to add visual interest.
This photo was taken inside a restaurant with an iPhone camera, and works because of the plating of the baked potato. We’ve also pulled a local beer into the top right corner just to add more visual interest in the frame.
This photo works well because the food fills the frame, and we’ve also had the dish covered in sauce to make it look even more appealing. A great rule of thumb when shooting food photos is asking yourself if the dish looks craveworthy.