Food photography tips & resources

When I first started putting pictures of my cooking up on the internet (over on my knitting blog) I had no idea what I was doing. As I read more and more cooking blogs and got more and more jealous of other blogger’s photography skills, I decided some thought and research was in order so that I could stop being embarrassed at my horrible pictures. I did take a photography class in high school (obviously not digital photography!) and I was even the photo editor of my HS newspaper (I know, such an achievement!), so I did know how to use a camera, but I didn’t know how to take good food/still life shots. Of course I’m still learning, but I’ve definitely come a long way! Here are some of the resources that helped me improve and some of the tips that had the biggest impact.

I clearly remember the first time I actually noticed amazing food photography on a site, and that was on Smitten Kitchen. Deb takes beautiful shots that convey motion and the cooking process; something about her photos makes you feel like you’re actually next to her in the kitchen, not just looking at a website. And the lighting in her pictures is always to-die-for! So naturally when I went on my hunt for food photography tutorials, I checked out her food photos post first.

If you go to that link you’ll see that the first thing she says is what every other resource says, too. To quote Deb:

The majority of food photography advice I have read boils down to two main points: don’t use flash and style the food attractively.

These two points may seem small and you (like me!) may even have said “duh” in your head when you read them, but when I stopped to think about it I realized that these two small things were sacrificed in every one of my bad photos!

My biggest obstacle in the quest for good pictures is taking the time to give the picture a chance. When I’m cooking dinner I’m usually rushing around, starving, and trying to eat ASAP. My hands are covered in whatever, there’s something sticky in my bangs, the dog’s begging for scraps at my feet, and I’m afraid to gunk up the camera . . . and so I rush. Rushed photos never look as good as they could have with just a little more time and thought!

To combat this problem, I’ve made some minor adjustments that have already paid off big time:

1. I keep the camera in a specific spot in the kitchen. That way it’s quick to find and easy to reach for in-progress shots.
2. Cook bloggable recipes on the weekends, and do the quick non-blog-worthy stuff on weeknights. My weekend cooking can afford a few extra stops along the way. The weekday cooking? Not so much.
3. Clear off an area in front of the window and keep it clear. Place whatever you’re shooting in that area so you never have to clear off clutter to get to the light.
4. For when light’s not available, get a strong true-spectrum bulb and put it somewhere useful in your kitchen. In my tiny Manhattan kitchen, the stove and main counter are lit by one of these bulbs so that I can easily take a quick in-progress shot with decent light without having to move whatever I’m doing over to the window (granted it’s only 5 steps away but still!). This bulb has drastically changed my in-progress pictures.

The above 4 tips are good for getting you set up to more easily take good photos. But what if you’re not confident in your food-styling skills? Then use my favorite cheat: Extreme closeups! It doesn’t much matter what else is around if you’re showing the texture and color of the food really well and everything else is out of focus.

Look at the picture above, for example. You can vaguely see an out-of-focus bag of coffee in the background, but that’s it. What you can’t see is the stack of recycling and the slow cooker that was also back there, and the cooling rack that was next to the challah board when I took this photo! Those things don’t “read” or even show up in this picture, all that shows is the light (this was taken on my “cleared off” table next to the window) and the texture of the crumb.

If you’re a regular at sites like Tastespotting and Foodgawker, you know I’m far from original in using of the extreme closeup. It seems like even professional magazines have shifted to shooting food using a sort of macro-style, where the main subject is in closeup focus and everything else is out of focus in the background. It turns out this is surprisingly easy to do even with auto-focus turned on: just turn off the flash, stick your camera as close as you can to the food, and try to take a picture. If the camera refuses to shoot the picture because you’re too close, move back until it’ll shoot it. If it focuses on the wrong part, just try it again until you’re happy with the way the picture looks. If your camera, like mine, lets you focus by pressing the button half-way, even better! Just press half-way to focus where you want, then move the camera while holding the button until you have the frame set up right, then press down all the way to take the shot.

Looking for more resources from people who really know what they’re talking about? Here are some of the tutorials and posts that have helped me:

• Apartment Therapy’s Food Photography Tips for Newbies
• 101 Cookbook’s Food Photography Tips
• BlogHer’s Helpful Food Photography Tips from other Bloggers (with lots of links to other resources!)
• Photojojo’s Ten Tastiest Food Photography Tips

Got a resource you want to add? Feel free to link to it in the comments!

Tagged as: food photography