5 Easy Food Photography Tips

5 Easy Food Photography Tips

In case you don’t follow me on Twitter, I was at the Brisbane ProBlogger Event earlier this week. I was lucky enough to get a place in the Intermediate Photography workshop, run by event sponsor Olympus.

 

The workshop was a bit basic for me, but that’s because I didn’t know what “intermediate” was: anything off of auto. I’m sure it was fine for others but it just didn’t suit me (I’ve passed this on to the event team with some suggestions). Towards the end of the session we got a quick run down of some food blogging tips, which were really great and I wanted to share them here, with my thoughts added in.

 

5 Easy Food Photography Tips

 

5 Easy Food Photography Tips

 

1) The 3/4 Shot

This is one of two main types of food photograph shots. The 3/4 (three quarter) shot is a photo that shows the viewer what the photo looks like from the point of view of the person seated at the table, ready to eat it.

 

2) The Top-Down Shot

This is the other main type of food photography shot. As the name describes, the top-down shot is taken from the top, looking down and it gives context to the eating environment. You’ll notice many top-down food photos have drinks, napkins and other assorted items in the frame as well. There are two main ways of taking this photograph: with the food at table height (using a tripod), or with the food on the floor (tripod useful, but not compulsory).

 

 3) Hunger Is OK!

It’s ok to be hungry when you’re taking photographs of food. If you’re hungry, you’ll probably shoot the food in a way that appeals to hungry people. However, the best tip from the workshop was that if you eat part of the food, it’s usually ok – because even half-eaten food looks good!

 

4) Clean Everything

Make sure that what you’re photographing is clean. Check for spills, marks, fingerprints and anything that will distract from the food. (I am terrible at this. Never look to me as an example for this haha.)

 

5) Baking Paper

This is great to have on hand, and not just for cooking! You can use baking paper as a light diffuser, and also as a backdrop or surface to shoot on.

 

Do you do food photography on your blog/social media? What tips can you share?

 

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