FOOD PHOTOGRAPHY

What is it?

The clue is in it’s name, food photography is images of all

types of food, which are well presented to make them look

more appetising.

What is the definition?

Food Photography is a ‘still life’ specialisation of commercial

photography and is aimed at producing attractive

photographs of the food to help promote it

Why is it used?

It is mainly used for advertisement and can be seen in shop

windows, food packaging, flyers, menus or cook books.

FOOD PHOTOGRAPHY

Lighting techniques:

Lighting is one of the most important things in any photography, because without it, we wouldn’t

be able to see the subject. Lighting also helps to highlight the subject therefore making it stand

out better. There are lots of different lighting techniques, but the most obvious is natural lighting,

the daylight we get from the sun.

Which technique is most commonly used for food?

The soft, dispersed lighting usually given by natural window lighting that casts very soft shadows

works beautifully with a lot of food photographs. Generally the best lighting is from the front side

(ie coming over the shoulder of the photographer), but all angles of natural light can be made to

work.

Reflectors – If you want to disperse the light even more or tone down some of the shadows,

then reflecting natural lighting is also high on the scale of desirability. This can be done with a

purpose-built reflector or you can improvise with light coloured material (white sheets/cloths) or

reflective material (foil).

Artificial Lighting – Sometimes, you’re just not going to be able to get in a position to take

advantage of natural lighting. Using strobes on food is a huge topic, but sometimes you will

often need to soften and disperse the light as much as possible with the use of soft-boxes and

reflectors, so the image doesn’t look too bright or harsh looking.

Dark Food Photography – a growing trend in some food photography is to go the low light style

and a dark setting. This is more about using the dark colours of the food and its background and

surroundings in combination with natural window lighting. It is very effective in creating mood

FOOD PHOTOGRAPHYCompositional Techniques:

Professional food photography is a collaborative effort, usually involving an art director, a

photographer, a food stylist, a prop stylist and their assistants. The role of the food stylist is to make

the food look attractive in the finished photograph. The time and effort a stylist takes to carefully and

artfully arrange the food, is the cause of differences between the way the stylist presents food, and

the way a home cook or chef may present food.

There are many different camera angles used in food photography; Head-on, from

above, tilted towards, tilted away, close up, diagonal and lining up the frames of the

camera with the lines in the food.

Rule of thirds also helps to being out an image be placing the food in a certain third. For example,

you could have the food in the left and middle third, cutlery in the right and maybe something with

accompanies it on the top right (see bottom right image)

Depth of Fields when you create that blurred background effect technically known as “bokeh” by

using a large aperture exposure setting. In doing so, you are controlling the viewer’s focus on a

specific object in your frame.

The use of props will also make the image look more interesting, eg, plates and bowls,

cutlery napkins, chopping boards, salt and pepper – just about anything food related that

will help present it.

FOOD PHOTOGRAPHY

The use of colour:

Colour in food photography is very important as it moves us visually and

creates the temptation that makes us want to eat them.

Most photographers us a colour wheel to see what colours work well

with each other. Based on this colour wheel, colours on opposite sides

of each other complement well in a scene. So, red would complement

green, blue complements orange and yellow complements violet. Using

opposite colours really makes the image contrast and stand out.

For blandly coloured food such as pasta, it can look very boring on it’s

own, so by adding colour in form of garnish, napkins and cutlery will add

more to the image, making it more engaging.

In post production, colours can then be adjusted be tweaking the

contrast, vibrancy, light temperature and brightness.

FOOD PHOTOGRAPHY

Manipulation:

This is when the image is edited and it can be done in 2 different ways. First of all it can be used to ‘touch up’ and image and make it look better, such as air brushing, to make it look smoother and clone stamp/ spot healing to get rid of any unwanted marks, lined or shadows. You can also adjust the colour levels to bring out more brightness and contrast.

Another way of completely manipulation an image is making it something it’s not. By merging it very skilfully with another image, there are many ways food can be manipulated and this is all done through the creative imagination of the photographer. Here are some examples: