How to Make Food Look Appetizing in Pictures
Have you ever noticed how alluring food photography can be? The right photo of a delicious dish can make your mouth water and elicit instant cravings. However, if you've ever seen a poorly shot photo of food, you know that those types of sensory shots don't happen by accident. The key to making food look good in pictures is making it look natural. If you can give the dish a natural background, lighting, and props, you can take beautiful food photos that will appeal to any audience.
Instructions
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Create a natural setting for your photo. Place the food on a table with silverware, napkins, water glasses, and even salt and pepper shakers in the background. If the food is set in an unnatural environment, it will detract from the food itself.
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Work with the background of the scene, and allow things to be present in the background, out of focus, or even partially cropped out of the picture. For instance, if you are photographing a big plate of spaghetti, a salad bowl or chunk of garlic bread makes perfect sense as a blurry background photo. This makes the scene look more natural, which is the ultimate goal.
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Place the camera on a tripod so it is level, or slightly lower, than the food. This will make the food look larger, more important, and it will show all of the yummy details.
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Adjust the lighting based on the meal and type of food you are serving to make it look most natural. For example, a breakfast food should be shot in high lighting since it is typically eaten in the morning, whereas a dinner meal should be shot in lower light. Play with the direction of light as well, so that it accents the best parts of the dish and shadows the faults.
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Tips & Warnings
In addition to using a camera set-up on a tripod, take candid shots with a smaller camera to test out various angles.
