Food is no longer essential today. The modern world abhors the old truth and has not eaten for a long time in order to live. Shooting food today is a cult and an indicator of a person's own relevance in time and space. If earlier the products were salted, pepper and cut, now they are being photographed. And nothing criminal if some of these masterpieces did not cause indigestion and spoil the mood!
Dear lovers of posting photos of dishes on social networks with the aim of "shutting up" in a shocking institution, this article is for you!
A few simple tips to help you make not just good photos, but aesthetically pleasing ones:
Natural light is key
The most attractive food for a photo is the one that gets natural light from the window. No expensive equipment is capable of providing more perfect and correct lighting!
Just no direct sunlight: they are quite bright. To prevent the sun from “eating” the color or leaving dazzling reflections, use any diffuser. So, in cloudy weather, the clouds will become your veil, and on clear days you can hide even from the midday sun behind ordinary curtains.
With this technique, you will be able to get a warm light and present the dish in a winning perspective.
Use color wisely
The final version of the dish must be served without fail. A single plate or a pair of wine glasses on a bare table is not permissible. Just a couple of lurid napkins or a funny tablecloth will give the composition a couple of shades and make the picture more pleasant for perception. For example, if the food is brown, purple and blue are excellent shades.
Disorder on the plate - "Yes!"
Only restaurateurs fight for the geometric accuracy of their dishes. Chefs in pursuit of symmetry often arm themselves with tweezers and other kitchen gadgets in order to give their brainchild additional perfection. Do not be like their example - naturalness is always in fashion in everything! Even a casual drop of sauce and a couple of crumbs will often create more appetite than fussy pedantry on a plate.
Photos should convey the atmosphere
Combine multiple photos into one to show the "mood" of the place you are dining in. For this today there are many programs in the public domain.
Combine everything in a photo that can give an idea of the establishment: small furnishings, signature dishes and even napkins on the table can evoke a visual image in your memory. Practice combining textures and materials to create a unique photo mood!
Participation of people during shooting is encouraged
How can you show coziness in a photo with a hot dish? It's simple enough! There is a simple trick showing that the food in the shot is prepared with love: take a plate with the contents in your hands!
This approach is very often used by professionals to recreate the intimacy of what is happening.
But photographing people eating their food is highly undesirable. No matter how delicious they mumble, the picture will not convey the aesthetics of what is happening.
Don't forget about line-up and composition
The vertically lined tower of chocolate chip cookies looks pretty unnatural. But this is the way to photograph "flat food", whether it be fragrant onion rings, freshly baked pancakes or hot pancakes - an excellent way to add appetizing and texture to the photo.
Shoot unattractive food exclusively in close-up
There are food products that, with excellent taste and a lot of admirers, do not look attractive in the pictures, to put it mildly. But the closer the viewer sees the object, the more details are shown to the view of the consumer, the more the appearance fades into the background. The larger and more massive the product is in the frame, the more its color and texture is revealed. Shoot ugly food up close
Sometimes this is what makes drooling involuntarily!
Bite me
This is the call that a photo with food should contain. Tell it visually! Just remove one element from the whole picture: break a still hot cookie, cut a slice from a pizza, or take a couple of the freshest buns from a baking sheet.
This method creates the effect of tension that occurs when the overall picture is not drawn. It looks especially advantageous when several frames are combined into one whole.
By following these simple rules when photographing food, you can create real masterpieces of photography.
