How to photograph confectionery correctly. How to take delicious food photos on iPhone. How to make the dish in the picture more appetizing
But in fact, to create a beautiful and bright picture, you can get by with a more modest set. Approximately the same as in the following photo: table lamps, white background and backing. In most cases, you will need a tripod - the market offers budget and quality models for hobby photographers. So let's get down to our roundup of articles and tutorials on food photography.
Composition and style- the fourth lesson for those who have mastered the previous three and want to experiment.
Food photography in detail
Steal like an artist - ideas, solutions, composition. Copy your favorite bloggers and one day you will find a unique style. To do this, study the experience of other photographers. For example, a whole blog is devoted to food photography: lessons, examples, tips and a lot of photos.
Read everything and want to become a food stylist? Then the advice of professionals to help - they know exactly where to start.
WHERE TO BEGIN Start by answering the questions: - what do you want to say to your photos? Why do you need it? - do you want to improve the quality of your photos? What for? - do you want subscribers to like your cake? Then decide - will you do it yourself or contact food photographers? If you want it yourself, then we will give you a complete step by step instructions- how to do it, and with minimal investment(just below, take your time)! Now take care of equipping your filming location. Spend once a couple of hours of your time to prepare everything you need, and then you can assemble and disassemble your mobile "studio" in 5 minutes. 
So, the location for filming - let it be the kitchen table by the window so that the light falls from the left side. Use plain white Whatman paper for the background. Cover the window with white tracing paper to create diffused daylight. This is especially helpful if you have a sunny side and direct rays are hitting your subject. By the way, it is better to shoot in cloudy weather - then the light is soft and diffused. When retouching the resulting photo, try to use the available filters as little as possible. mobile applications... It is enough to correct the brightness and contrast. By the way, do not rush to spend money on a professional camera, first understand the basics - great photos can be done on the phone. 
MAIN ERRORS IN DESSERT PICTURES:- Frames, stickers, icons like butterflies, hearts, flowers - greatly reduces the cost of the photo, as well as the product itself
- Overuse of Instagram filters
- Incorrect shooting angle
- Direct sunlight will discolor your cake
- Last minute photos, cake in a box
ANGLE Try to stick to the most advantageous angles. Don't confuse your followers with incomprehensible photos. 
WHAT IS WHITE BALANCE, WHY IT IS YOU, AND HOW TO SET IT UP 
How to understand what white balance is, and understand if it is violated in your photo? Take a look at your photo. You shot a cake with white cream, and it turned out green? Or pinkish? Or grayish? This means that the white balance in the settings of your phone or camera is not built correctly. To configure this parameter - dig into the settings! Why do you need this? First of all, to avoid problems with customers who order the cake "as in the photo". In the photo they see red cream, but in reality it is pink. If you don't sell baked goods, then you most likely want your followers to rate your talent level. And for this you also need a beautiful and realistic picture, don't you?) How to understand that you have adjusted the balance correctly? Take a picture of white and gray sheets side by side, look at the screen - does white look white? Is gray gray or greenish? If you see the colors of the paper as in reality - white and gray, then everything is in order. If the color on the screen is reddish, bluish, whatever, just not the original - adjust further. The photo below shows the difference in white balance settings. Which piece do you find the most realistic? Which one do you like more? 
THE MOST NECESSARY ITEMS FOR YOUR HOME STUDIO- White Whatman paper - can be used as background, lightbox, reflector
- Black / yellow / pink / blue whatman paper - as background
- Foil - used as a reflector
- White curtain or white tracing paper - diffuses light from the window.
- Large box - make a lightbox from it (see assembly instructions below)
- Beautiful cake stand
- Scotch tape - for attaching whatman paper, foil and tracing paper.
HOW TO REMOVE AT NIGHT Well, you probably already realized that the main problem with night shooting is light. Or rather, its absence. No matter how bright your kitchen chandelier is, it is unfortunately not enough to get a great photo. And here your skillful pens will come to the rescue - we master the lightbox! The word is scary, but it just means - a light box. For a lightbox you will need: - big box
- tracing paper or white baking paper
- Scotch
- scissors
- 3 lamps with incandescent lamps (absolutely any, the cheapest - if only they hold and shine)
- 20 minutes of your time
By the way, if you shoot on reflex camera with the built-in flash, you often encounter harsh shadows from objects. To soften shadows and diffuse light from the flash (attention, SECRET !!), make a small bag of tracing paper or a thin paper bag and put it on the flash. And that's it, say goodbye to harsh shadows. Here comes STEP-BY-STEP INSTRUCTION... We have specially prepared it for you in photo format so that you can save it to yourself. 
If you don't want to do all of the above, contact a food photographer who is close to you geographically, and let him take pictures of your desserts. It is inexpensive. And don't forget to put your soul into what you do) 
P.S. If you have any questions, ask them in the comments. We will give them to Yulia, and she will answer) By the way, Yulin Two girls, found in the internet interesting tips how to beautifully and correctly photograph your dishes. Let's learn!
We need to create an illusion.
PLAN
- serving dishes,
- glasses,
- devices,
- napkins,
- stands,
- the background,
Have you ever flipped through cookbooks or magazines and caught yourself thinking that a good shot of a particular dish makes it more appetizing in the frame?
This is what the multimillion dollar culinary photography business is all about. Professional photographers sometimes get thousands of dollars per shot filming dishes for books or magazines.
A well-placed composition and light in the frame can embellish and make even the simplest salad more appetizing.
And in this thread we will go through all the details of food photography in more detail.
First off, let's take a look at what is the most important in culinary photography?
To interest the viewer in our recipe, and in the absence of taste and smell in the photo, convey the content as closely as possible through the only available sense of the beholder - a look, and perhaps even more - show him the same banal salad from such an angle that he would have thought from the picture that this is the most delicious and indescribable salad he has ever eaten!
We need to create an illusion.
I will not go into details of what exactly is used by professionals in food photography, but I will only say one thing, those dishes that you often see in the pictures are not very suitable for food after photographing, since enough poisonous chemicals go into battle, starting from hairspray for shine and finishing with machine oil and glue for giving a "creamy" look.
But, of course, we will not use such things, and just look at the moments of compositional design.
For a more appetizing photo, good lighting and a clean frame are a must. In general, it is imperative to associate any picture with cleanliness, since in this case it concerns almost the most sacred in the life of the beholder - food! We are all very picky about the cooking process and have our own standards for how food should look. It is precisely when you photograph culinary masterpieces that you need to focus on the most picky viewer, because your picture, even of the most masterpiece recipe, can be rejected due to elementary fingerprints on the glass or carelessly smeared sauce on a plate.
The lighting in your pictures should appear daytime or even morning, with a lot of sun, creating a good joyful mood. The fact that you will probably shoot your work with the help of artificial light, lamps and additional lights, let it remain your personal secret, and the viewer should be given the illusion of a sunny Sunday morning, when you can relax and indulge in an appetizing dessert, a couple of buns or a piece of juicy cake. What you do not want to create in your shot is the impression of late evening and gorging at night.
PLAN
You should be prepared for the fact that preparing for shooting food may take you enough time, so it is advisable to plan everything in advance in order to shoot the food already freshly cooked, hot, fresh and just off the stove, so that the only thing you need to do is press on the shutter and you're done.
The shooting location, say a table, should already be prepared in advance. You should already have a planned composition, be it:
- serving dishes,
- glasses,
- devices,
- napkins,
- stands,
- the background,
- tripod adjusted to the desired angle and height,
- a camera attached to it with the necessary settings,
- light, lamps, illuminating flashlights ...
It is best of course not to neglect the sunlight and use it to the fullest, as far as your weather and the location of the house allow. But still, the more sunlight, the more natural your dish will look, and the less you will have to use auxiliary lighting. And for it you will need an adapter and additional table lamps, of course, if you are not working in a studio environment (although this does not make less wires).
This is filmed as shown, only with natural lighting, without additional light.
So, before you start preparing, make a plan with the expectation of subsequent photography. Place the table, preferably by the window, if you will be shooting during the day. Prepare all the necessary utensils, think over what else you will have in the frame in addition to the main course, perhaps some spices, herbs, fruits or ingredients of dishes, vegetables, etc. Do not forget about glasses, cutlery, napkins, coasters. Organize everything on your table as it will already look in the frame. Set up your tripod and camera.
TABLEWARE
The dishes on which the dish is presented is probably the most important element in the frame after the food itself. Therefore, a detailed approach to this object of the composition should be extremely careful.
First, you can never go wrong with white dishes!
It doesn't matter what dish, first, second or dessert, no matter what color composition - white always looks winning in food photography.
Of course, this does not mean that everything must necessarily be filmed on white dishes. Multi-colored can also give a special charm to the composition, but here it is already necessary to carefully select the rest of the accessories in the frame.
First, make sure that the color of the dish is balanced with the color of the dish, for example that it is not a bright red soup and an equally bright red plate. A too brightly flashy frame is also not the best means of transmission. If your dish is rather boring in color, then it's not a bad idea to add something bright to the frame, in this case a colored plate will be in place. Well, for example, if you have, say, porridge or soup of a light wheat color, and you shoot it on white dishes, plus a white background, then this is unlikely to awaken your appetite. If you are dealing with this kind of dishes, then be sure to add a little color, let it be the constituent vegetables, such as tomatoes, peppers or even greens.
The great outcome of a successful shot depends on the perception of color balance.
Further, if you are using colored plates, then this special color must be used elsewhere. Whether it's napkins, or vegetables in the background, juice, etc. Notice how in the first two frames the dishes are combined with napkins and other accessories. In the third, the yellow plate is balanced by a bright yellow jug in the background, and in the fourth, the whole set of dishes looks harmonious as a whole.
Just like white dishes looks pretty good in the frame, so square plates look much more successful than round ones. This is most likely due to the fact that the square corners can be placed diagonally and by this, some geometric moments can be added to the composition, thereby creating dynamics and rhythm.
Don't be afraid to place a few plates under your dish, it looks pretty funny and if the color composition is well balanced you can create a very interesting shot. Plus it allows you to slightly increase the angle from which you will shoot.
Also pay attention to the size of your dishes, and in particular the plates.
Too large sizes are very inconvenient to shoot, firstly you will have to cut off part of the dishes in the frame, and possibly even the dish itself. Small cymbals are much easier to shoot and compose around them.
If you are shooting soup, then pour it into small bowls, and perhaps this will allow you to insert even two or three into the frame, thereby showing portions for several people.
Snacks also look great on small plates. At the same time, we do not have unnecessary space and we can approach this dish quite close and shoot from a good angle and depth of field.
Feel free to experiment with your cookware. Especially when it comes to salads and desserts.
Salads can look very interesting in martini glasses (as you saw above), or in clear dessert cups for ice cream or pudding. The transparency and height of these dishes allows you to create a festive mood when the dishes are served individually for each guest, as well as viewing the contents is very important for the perception of the dish. It looks especially interesting when salads or desserts are made in layers and it is possible to view each separate layer and components.
LIGHTING
Technically, product photography is a simple process. Even if your camera and optics are quite simple, knowing how to work with light, you will achieve good results in photographing food.
A common mistake photographers make is insufficient fill lighting, which causes colors to become grayish and lackluster. Therefore, it is good to use diffuse back or back-side lighting and fill in the front.
But if you don't have good light, don't despair. Use the light from the window! Passing through the transparent curtain, it will give a soft diffused light. Plus, use foil for filling - great! The main thing is not to shoot in the "best" light - in ... direct sunlight through the window.
At home, it is quite possible to reproduce the classic lighting scheme. To do this, you need to take a wooden frame, stretch tracing paper (or baking paper, only white) over it - it will work as a diffusing screen (diffuser). Place it in front of the light behind the subject. To fill the foreground, use a device similar in color temperature, but if there is no second source, it can be replaced by a sheet of foil that reflects the rays of the backlight.
Be sure to pay attention to shadows and highlights from everything - the plate, the food on this plate, and so on. There are products that reflect light and look juicy, but there are vice versa (for example, boiled carrots or something else, a thread). Experiment!
WHITE BALANCE
Take something simple and take some test shots on this simple one to determine the DOF and white balance. Adjust the BB to a clean white sheet.
But. Even if you shoot in cloudy weather and there is a well-diffused light from the window, this will not save you from falling into deep, tasteless shadows from the opposite side, and (possibly) artificial light from internal lighting can introduce a foreign BB from the other side. In this case, try the BB mode - "sun".
FRAME COMPOSITION
Are you about to master the intricacies of food photography? Prepare for the fact that you will have to learn the features of kitchens different countries the world.
Dishes of Russian or Japanese cuisine should be photographed in different ways to emphasize the essence of the dishes. Russian dishes should not be "served" in a cold European style, remember that there should always be a match between the cuisine and the manner in which you photograph it.
What is food photography?
Filming for packaging. To depict the product as clearly as possible. The picture should be bright and attractive so that the buyer would immediately want to buy. Photoshop and dummies are often used.
Country style. Used in cookbooks and magazines. This is a kind of imitation of home cooking. Country photography should be associated with normally homemade food, cooked with love, so to speak. Here, special attention is paid to dishes, entourage, textures of fabrics ...
Neo-style. It is characterized by graphic quality, a combination of strict forms, a combination of bright and tonal contrasts. Here food does not play the main role, but the main aspect is made on a strict composition ...
The key to success is the ability to feel the frame, the ability to build its composition.
Thinking of how to "serve" this or that dish is a pleasure and exercise of imagination. Background experiments are endless! For example, you can shoot on plastic, glass, wood, paper ... And light fabric backgrounds look more "alive" ... Just take pictures if you like it! What some will call a mistake, others will call an artistic device. Development is always the destruction of the canons!
Food is a wonderful subject for still life, and can be used to create great artistic shots... But to take an exceptional photo, it is not enough just to click on what is on the plate. Like any genre, food photography has its own rules and must be followed if you want great colors, textures and shapes. In this collection - 13 simple, but very effective tips on how to get really tasty shots with your iPhone.
1. Shoot in natural light
Light is a key element in creating beautiful still lifes. Always photograph food in natural daylight, not under a lamp - it will give the picture an unpleasant orange or yellowish tint. Light is extremely important in food photography if you want to convey the true colors of food, plates and backgrounds. Why do you need yellow rice, yellow dishes and a yellow tablecloth, when in fact everything is white?
The best lighting for food is soft, diffuse, natural daylight. In warm weather, you can even try taking pictures outside. In most cases, however, direct sunlight should be avoided, because this kind of light can cause exposure problems and objects throwing harsh shadows.
The ideal option is a cloudy day: the clouds scatter the sun's rays and create soft light with soft shadows. If you're shooting indoors, it's best to do it on a table by the window so that natural light illuminates the composition.
2. Control the shadows
Shadows are very important to photography. They can both animate and kill your shot. Their intensity depends on what kind of lighting you are photographing under. Bright, direct rays from the sun create harsh, dark shadows. On a cloudy day, they will be much softer. The photo above was taken in bright light. Pay attention to the shadows. Sometimes harsh shadows can add drama to a shot, especially when they create unusual silhouettes that complement the composition.
But in most cases, when shooting still life and food photography, harsh shadows should be avoided. Soft shadows work better, they create depth, add volume, without overwhelming the rest of the image. Therefore, it is best to shoot on a cloudy day or move your composition to a slightly shaded area.
If you are shooting indoors, the direct sunlight that hits the window can be diffused by translucent white curtains. You can also move the object away from the window, or even move it to another window.
If you are shooting outdoors on a sunny day and there is no way to move into the shade, a reflector will come to the rescue. You can use a professional reflector, but a simple sheet of white paper will do.
Place the reflector on the side where the shadows fall - so that it is opposite the sun. The rays will bounce off it and fall on the subject, brightening the shadows. The green smoothie shot was taken on a very bright sunny day with a white sheet as a reflector.
Of course, everything depends only on you. If you want shadows in your photo, use shadows. But always keep in mind the role of light and shadow in the picture, and manipulate them to get exactly the image you intended.
3. Use a neutral background
The background is just as important as the subject. If it's unkempt or bright, it can attract too much attention, distracting from the food itself. A relatively neutral background will allow you to focus on your subject. Moreover, the "neutral background" does not mean that it should be completely simple or monochromatic, it is necessary that it only complements the composition, and does not suppress it.
There are three types of backgrounds that go very well with food photography: light, dark, and wood (brown). A dark dish usually looks better against a dark background, and vice versa. Wooden surfaces- tables, cutting boards - suitable for almost any food.
You can use almost anything as a background. A wooden table by the window is a great way to combine a nice background and daylight... Compositions on a tea towel or tablecloth work well, especially if they are white. Color options are also suitable for some foods, such as a vintage floral pattern.
You can also try a black board, rug, tile, baking paper, baking sheet, or newspaper as a background. If you are photographing food from the side, try to keep the opposite wall in a neutral, soft, dull color.
4. Think about color
Food photography is a great way to work with color. By itself, colors have a profound effect on the overall composition and overall impression of a shot. The photo above uses similar hues - warm, earthy tones for a sense of comfort and tranquility.
To achieve the opposite effect, use contrasting colors. They create a vivid, dynamic image that captivates the eye. Contrast of red and green works especially well.
Contrast can be based on food versus background, or using several different colors of the food itself. Contrasts in smoothies turn out to be very interesting - it is beautiful, and fun, and tasty.
5. Choose the right angle
When photographing food, always choose the angle that best represents your composition. Shooting from above is often ideal, especially when the food is beautifully presented on a plate or bowl.
This perspective has several advantages. It allows you to capture all the details of the dish and the background, emphasizing the shapes of plates, cutlery and other objects. In addition, shooting from above, it is much easier to create a strong, harmonious composition - it is enough to correctly position the elements on the surface. Finally, this angle is great if you want to clip away unwanted elements in the background.
However, if you are shooting a drink in a glass or a cake with interesting layers, it is worth shooting from the side. This is also the best angle if you want to show the details of sliced bread, pie, muffin, and so on. Just make sure to photograph against a neutral background, such as against a light wall.
Another way is to shoot diagonally. This option combines the advantages of the previous two and allows you to emphasize the three-dimensionality of the subject. If you are not sure how best to shoot a particular composition, try photographing it from different angles. You will be surprised when you see how different the plots are.
6. Arrange food nicely
Composition is a key element of good photography, so think carefully about the placement of each subject. There is nothing worse than a plate on which food is piled ugly. This is not food photography. Always try to arrange the ingredients in a neat or unusual way to create visual interest and harmony.
Again, you can always play with fruits and vegetables - they can be sliced and patterned on a plate, tray, or baking sheet. After you have laid out the composition, make sure not to spill juice or sauce - all streaks must be carefully wiped off so that there are no unsightly puddles and blots in the photo.
7. Leave enough space
Before flipping the shutter, make sure there is some empty space around the cymbal - you don't need it to fill the entire frame. Of course, sometimes food close-ups look very good, but more often than not, free, clean space creates a more pleasing composition and puts more emphasis on the shapes of the objects being filmed.
White space with a dark background adds dark tones to photos; a light background, on the other hand, lightens the image. Experiment with the layout. Maybe a plate of food will look better in the middle of the frame, or maybe you should move it slightly to the side. Ideally, you need to make several options to find out which position looks best in this case.
8. Decorate the place
Food and background are the main elements, but to make your photos even more interesting, you can decorate them with a few small items. A good option is to use a few dry ingredients that were used in the preparation. This will make the composition more interesting and create a “visual recipe” for your dish.
Spices look great as decoration. You can fill a spoon with turmeric or cinnamon and place it somewhere in the frame. You can pour slides of multi-colored spices or sprinkle sugar, salt, pepper over the background. Also great for garnishing are berries, fruit pieces, nuts, chocolate wedges and fresh herbs.
Moreover, it can be inedible objects: cutlery, dishes - their shapes and lines will be useful for creating a composition. Colored stones, as in the photo below, are also quite capable of bringing a photo to life. Always imagine how the colors of the decorations will match the colors of the food and background. Will they contrast or, on the contrary, complement each other?
You can also use natural ingredients - they will make the picture more vivid and will symbolize the season in which the photo was taken. In summer, it can be flowers - they will add brightness and tenderness. The leaves also look great - in the photo below they create a characteristic autumn mood.
Nature is an endless source of inspiration. Acorns or chestnuts, cones or pebbles - all this can be a decoration for your composition.
9. Create a story
Photography is a great way to tell a story without words. By bringing in certain elements, you can create an interesting story that is sure to draw the viewer to the photo. Think about what can give your shot a dreamy, exciting, immersive atmosphere. For example, you can put an open novel next to a plate or put a pair of tea to create a feeling of comfort and warmth.
The laptop in the background will tell you that you are briefly distracted from work for a cup of freshly brewed coffee, and the cookbook will tell you that you are experimenting with new recipes.
The photo below is permeated with an atmosphere of relaxation and freedom.
Chamomile tea, a book, pieces of chocolate let the viewer immerse themselves in the picture and feel how nice it is to just enjoy life.
10. Add the human element
Another way to tell an interesting, extraordinary story in one shot is to add the human element. The hand in the photograph allows you to create a sense of the presence of the viewer himself in the picture - as if he himself took it.
With this technique, you will have to hold the iPhone with one hand, so try to achieve maximum stability before pressing the shutter button.
If you are sitting at a table with friends, why not capture the hands of all of you? This photo will always tell the story of your friendship and happiness that has gathered you around the table with delicious food.
11. Keep it simple
Above we talked about different ways to decorate a picture, but sometimes the best option- make the shot as simple as possible. If the food you are photographing is bright in color or unusual in shape and lies against a contrasting background, a simple, minimal composition is ideal. For the greatest impact, position your subject in the center of the frame and do not use any significant embellishment.
In such a situation, it is best to avoid patterned or brightly colored plates or cups. Plain white porcelain - optimal choice because it will not distract attention from food. If you are shooting close-ups, jewelry is not needed at all. In photography, sometimes less is more.
12. Adjust exposure
Once you've composited, arranged the lighting you want, the last thing to do before clicking the shoot button is to adjust the exposure level. Simply put, exposure determines the level of brightness in an image. The main problem is that white plates and white backgrounds can be overexposed (too bright, no visible detail). To avoid overexposure, you should set the exposure in the brightest places.
To adjust the exposure in the camera app, tap on the area you want to make clear, and then just swipe your finger up or down the screen. Up - to increase exposure and make the image brighter, down - to decrease it and darken the frame.
Exposure is most problematic when shooting high-contrast scenes - for example, if you are photographing a white plate against a dark background. The contrast is so strong that it will be difficult for the camera to capture details in both the brightest and darkest areas at the same time.
In such cases, you need to expose in the brightest places, and the shadows can always be lightened in post-processing. Darkening overexposed areas so that details are visible is much more difficult, and sometimes even impossible.
13. Improve the colors in the photo editor
There are hundreds of colors and shades of food, but the iPhone may not always capture them exactly the way you see them. Sometimes they are clearly lacking in brightness, and sometimes they should be slightly dimmed. Fortunately, the color can always be adjusted using photo editors. There are many filters as well as individual tools that allow you to adjust the image settings.
It's worth experimenting with filters to find the one that works for your particular image. Filters that add brightness to colors make the picture more sonorous, saturated. Filters, on the other hand, muffle color, create a softer mood. If you don't like filters, you can always use the tools that allow you to adjust the color saturation, temperature, hue and tone.
Summary
Let's summarize. iPhone is a great tool for taking food photos, and by following that simple rules, you will certainly get very mouth-watering shots. So why not start now - cook Tasty food, bake cookies, cut fruit, whip up a smoothie, buy a nice cake and start taking pictures?
Pay attention to lighting and shadows. Try to shoot both indoors and outdoors.
Choose a background that will complement your composition, experiment with shooting angles.
Be sure to create a beautiful, clean, balanced composition.
Use decorations, add the human element, create your own story.
And, of course, don't forget to process the frame to enhance the colors and give it the right mood.
And remember, the best thing about food photography is the ability to eat all the goodies after the photo shoot!
A culinary specialist who does not dream of serving the food prepared by him in the most advantageous way is bad - therefore, I hope, many people were interested. Today we will continue to cover the presentation of dishes, but in a slightly different aspect. It's no secret that many chefs, and not only bloggers, often photograph their creations, and the tips below will help them master this skill to perfection.
Every Food secretly nurtures its own insidious plan: it wants you to eat it, and moreover immediately.
If you fuss around Food, trying to photograph it instead of eating it, its defense mechanism kicks in. She starts to look disgusting in your pictures, which makes you give up, put your camera down and eat Food. Natural selection in action.
The time has come to destroy Food's insidious plans. Check out our tips, grab your cameras, and join the great food photography revolution!
We are all familiar with the rumors about the terrible tricks photographers have to go to to make the dishes in their pictures look delicious. Horror stories of food stylists armed with cans of shoe polish and polishing a raw turkey to make it look baked. Mashed potato balls in ice cream cones, decorated with machine oil that looks like chocolate in the photo.
Fortunately, some of us know how to avoid all these atrocities. We're regular people trying to capture restaurant food as tasty as it smells or beautifully capture our grandmother's freshly baked cupcakes. Making food photogenic takes a lot of work - but it's very easy if you know how.
1: Environment
Choose an environment that highlights your dish, rather than distracting attention to yourself. Choose simple decorations or a regular tablecloth. Use plates that contrast or match with your dish, and avoid plates that are the same color as the food.
Before you start shooting, make sure that there are no distractions in the background, such as accidentally wandering people, silver dishes, and so on. Shooting at maximum aperture will blur the background.
2: Light
Use natural light whenever possible. The ideal setting for shooting is next to a large window with a white curtain to diffuse the light.
If natural light doesn't work, resist the temptation to shoot with flash. Food needs to be handled more delicately - the flash will make the image look too flat and repulsive shiny spots will appear on it.
3: color balance
Learn to work with color balance. If you shoot at artificial lighting, your pictures may be skewed towards yellow or blue, which will make the food in the photo disgusting (just look at that nasty blue bacon). Be sure to set the white balance correctly on your camera, or change it later on your computer.
4: don't move
Stand still. In low-light environments such as restaurants and kitchens, when shooting with long exposure, any movement of the camera will cause shake. Use a tripod whenever you can. If you don't have a tripod, try placing your camera on a glass or the back of a chair. As a last resort, make yourself a tripod from a regular string - a string tripod.
5: shoot more
Take lots of pictures. Walk around the dish, evaluate which angle looks the most advantageous: from the side, to shoot the food almost in front? Or, perhaps, from above, to reveal the geometry of serving the dish?
6: use the zoom
Get as close as possible. If your camera has a macro option, use it. Fill the frame with food so the viewer can almost taste it.
7: Preparation
Remember to take pictures in the process. Sometimes, cooking can be as fun as the final result.
8: act quickly
Work without delay. The faster you take a photo, the fresher the food will look on it. Cold, frozen meat or wilted salad looks unappetizing.
Practice with an empty plate to get ready for the shoot before the food is ready. At the last moment, replace it with a plate of platter - and remove.
9: Little things
The devil is in the little things. Check the edges of plates and glasses for any food particles that have gotten lost, and wipe off any stains. Use sauces and side dishes to add color to uniform-looking dishes (for example, add a slice of lemon if you're skimming tea).
10: Don't shoot
Know when to refrain from filming. Some dishes will never look delicious, so you don't have to try.
Plain foods and brown sauces are best left alone. While they can be really delicious, try taking a good shot of a dish like haggis, for example.
On my own behalf, I can add one old truth that has not lost its relevance: perfection comes with practice. Shoot more often - and already six months later, you will notice serious progress in your photographs.
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