The Mija Chronicles

Mexican food and culture, on both sides of the border

How to shoot mouth-watering food photos

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From what I’ve gathered in my short career as a blogger who rhapsodizes about food, there are two keys to shooting great food photos: lighting, and practice.

I’m still futzing around with both, and trying to wrap my head around the behemoth that is “composition.” Since a few of you asked, I wanted to share a few tips from the recent workshop I took with Penny de los Santos.

Penny is a senior contributing photographer with Saveur, and she’s also shot for National Geographic and Sports Illustrated, among others. She gives food photography workshops throughout the U.S., and I’d seen raves about her recent Seattle class via her Twitter feed. When she Tweeted that she was offering a class in San Francisco on the same weekend I happened to be in town, I quickly signed up.

The class cost about $300, so it wasn’t cheap. But this was a relatively low price compared to other food blogging/photography classes and retreats I’ve seen. (Some of these places charge $600 or $900, sending the message that you have to be SUPER RICH to be a quality food blogger. This drives me insane.)

Just like I’d hoped, the class was fantastic. Penny was friendly and funny, and she somehow managed to synthesize buckets of information on how to shoot a great picture into eight hours. Definitely worth every penny. (Heh. Sorry.)

Here are the four main points I came away with, and my thoughts on whether or not you need a fancy DSLR camera to shoot great photos.

How to create fabulous food photos

1. Lighting, lighting, lighting. Penny doesn’t shoot with crazy lamps and a tripod. She shoots in natural light, no flash, and holds the camera in her hand. If she’s inside a restaurant and the lighting isn’t any good, she takes the plate of food outside. She once shot a plate on top of a Dumpster, because the Dumpster was in an alley behind the restaurant, where the lighting was perfect.

We learned how to use our light meters in this class, but you don’t necessarily have to do this to produce a good photo. You can shoot in automatic, and if the lighting’s right and the subject’s right, you’re going to get a great shot. Just DON’T use the built-in flash. Ever.

When you’re considering the light, think about where it’s coming from and how bright it is. Around noon on a sunny day, the light is white and strong, and if you’re taking pictures outdoors, it’s going to completely throw this harsh blanket over your image. (Not a good thing, in most cases.) So if you can only shoot at noon on a sunny day, look for shade, or shoot inside near a window. Or shoot in the morning or around sunset when the light is softer and more golden. Of course, if you have the money, you could also buy a full-spectrum lamp to mimic natural sunlight.

2. Vary your angles. There are three basic angles to taking food photos: Overhead, three-fourths and side view. Overhead is exactly what it sounds like: shooting the dish or subject in question from directly overhead, as if your camera was a hovering UFO. This works great for salads and other colorful dishes.

For three-fourths, you move your camera-UFO position down and a little to the side. It’s about a 45-degree angle.

Side view is just like it sounds, too — a direct side view. This works well for things that have height, like a loaf of date bread.

3. Think about colors, textures and contrasts. A big bowl of oatmeal probably isn’t going to photograph well. But what if you added some toasted nuts and dried fruit for texture? Same problem with this bowl of lentils, which I struggled to photograph, because they felt so brown and blah and boring to me.

I probably should’ve added a dollop of crema, and maybe a little sprig of thyme. That would’ve jazzed up the photo. Again, this goes back to that practice thing. You just gotta keep at it until you figure out what garnishes might work best to add that much-needed color pop and contrast.

Think about plates, and surfaces and napkins. A dark-brown plate is not going to photograph well on a dark-brown wooden table. But a white plate against a wooden table looks pretty nice… and even livelier with a bit of green in the background.

Another thing to consider is portion size. Smaller portions tend to photograph much better than large ones.

4. Look for energy, and don’t be afraid to get in people’s faces. This is what I struggled with the most in Penny’s class. I’m super content to be home alone in my little TV-room/photo studio, shooting a zillion photos of a bowl of lentils. But walking up to a stranger and asking them if I can take their picture? Especially a stranger eating? I can’t do it.

It’s odd, because I worked as a newspaper reporter for eight years and I had — and still have — absolutely no qualms with walking up to a stranger and asking them a question related to a story. A camera feels so much more intrusive than a notepad and pen, though.

Why is taking pictures of strangers important? Because in a lot of cases, people are what make really great food photos. They’re interesting and vibrant and they have unique faces. They bring character and variety and movement to a photo, especially if they’re eating. Penny has some fantastic food-related people images on her blog, which I highly encourage you to check out.

So yeah. I only took three photos of a people during my assignment. My favorite one was this kid, at a fish market.

The other bloggers in the class really brought it, though. Check out the Flickr group for more evidence.

Real quick before I sign off, I wanted to talk about cameras. Penny didn’t address this much at her workshop — we were too busy learning a mountain of other things, and hitting the streets — so I’ll share my own opinion.

How important is a DSLR camera in shooting great food photos?

You don’t need a DSLR camera to take good food photos. If you can’t afford one, a digital point-and-shoot takes perfectly fine pictures. This is what I used for five years, and what I used on this blog for about 10 months. If you can fiddle with the ISO and turn the flash off, you should be fine. Personally, I loved the macro setting on my Canon camera, and I used it like a fiend.

Here were some of my favorite photos, taken with my Canon point-and-shoot:

Nicuatole:

Nicuatole, a thickened, corn masa pudding from Mexico, photographed on Nov. 9, 2005

Apple granola breakfast crisp, with yogurt:

Apple granola breakfast crisp, to serve two or three people on a weekend morning. Adapted from Smitten Kitchen

Orange bread pudding with gooey raisin sauce:

Orange bread pudding with gooey raisin sauce

That said… if you are serious about food blogging, and you can scrimp and save and afford a DSLR, you should get it. Seriously. It’s basically like the difference between a homemade hamburger bun and a packaged one. The packaged one is fine, and the hamburger tastes well enough if that’s all you’ve ever known. But a homemade bun makes the burger so much better.

Really, with my Canon Rebel XSi — the entryway Canon after a point-and-shoot — I don’t even do anything. I just make sure the light is okay, and then I press a button. Really. That’s it. (But I press the button a bunch of times and take a bunch of photos at different angles.) My camera was $599 on Amazon, and I skipped the kit lens in favor of a $99 fixed 50mm f/1.8 II that was recommended on various food blogs. Fixed lenses tend to offer sharper quality than zoom lenses, or so I’ve read, which makes them great for shooting food.

Here are a few food-blogging resources I consulted while trying to figure out whether I should upgrade, and which camera to buy:

Smitten Kitchen: Our Approach to Food Photos

Steamy Kitchen: Gettin’ that Money Shot

101 Cookbooks’ Food Photography Tips

Family Friendly Food: Learning About a Lens

Still Life With, a blog dedicated to shooting food photos, also has some great tips, and links to classes at their new food photography studio (!) in Seattle.

Obviously I’m still learning here. If you have any other tips you’d like to share, I’d love to hear them!

Reader Interactions

Comments

  1. Thanks; that is extremely useful. But I’d never take my plate of food outside to the Dumpster for better lighting.)

    Another tip, from me: remove crappy distractions from the picture , such as dirty crumpled napkins, before shooting.

    Next, move plates away from the edge of the table, so you don’t later have to crop out a section of floor, or legs.

    Three; have your companions pull in their hands and arms out of the picture.
    Fourth and final; never let the phto interfere with your or your companions enjoyment of the food.

    Food first, foto second. (Not much can be done to make lentils look good.)

    Saludos,
    Don Cuevas

    • Thanks Don Cuevas! Really like the fourth one. I always feel like I’m annoying people by saying, “Umm, can you not eat that just yet? I want to get a quick photo.” Sometimes at dimly lit restaurants I can’t get even an halfway-decent image, but instead of continuing to mess with my settings I just put the camera away and EAT. That’s what it’s all about anyway.

    • Wonderful post and wonderful comment from Don.

      Background
      I have found keeping the background to minimum very helpful. Shallow depth of field helps eliminate distractions from the background. I too find the floor and legs of the table very annoying if I don’t frame the picture carefully.

      Framing
      Framing is the most important thing to master. Eliminating distraction from the frame helps the audience/viewer to focus on the one and only message.

      Lesley,
      Great post. Thank you for sharing this.

      • Neel: Wonderful site you’ve got. I’ll definitely have to check it out on a regular basis! Thanks for sharing a few tips. I’m still figuring out the framing thing — usually I’m not sure whether to put the whole plate in the picture, half the plate, 3/4 of the plate, etc. I know it depends on what you’er shooting and the background, but anyway… I guess I need to practice more.

  2. I hate built-in flash. I use only very, very rarely. It has to qualify as an emergency. Why do some people insist on using it? When you can afford a slightly longer lens, I’d invest in one. 50 mms are useful but a longer lens will ensure that as you open up the f-stop you will narrow your depth of field so only what you want in focus will be sharp.

    • Thanks Beatriz. Still trying to figure out what all the f-stop stuff means, and how to focus on the thing I want. I need to take another crack at my camera manual. And I think I’m going to take a class here locally just to get more of the technical stuff down.

  3. Great post, Lesley, and great photos! When shooting people, I like to keep the moment as candid as possible, so try to take the picture without them noticing me. If they happen to look my way, I pretend I’m looking somewhere else until they become distracted again. 🙂

  4. Great post! My son and I are always taking pics of our food. Sometimes we get it right but most times not so much. I think the points you shared from your seminar will make a big difference in our future photo shoots.

  5. Very impressive suggestions for pictures! I love taking photographs of my food but haven’t really gotten around to buying a decent camera. I currently use my Iphone to take pictures but it’s still not good enough for beautiful pictures like yours!

    I enjoyed reading this entry!

  6. You are right.

    2 main things. Light and contrast. of course angles are important too but I guess light and contrast are must.

  7. Lighting is always my downfall. Because I cook or bake at night, I’m always left without natural light. So frustrating. But I keep at it in hopes that one day, I’ll be at home cooking during the day.

    and yes, the 50mm f/1.8 is a godsend.

    and the apple parfait photo is making my mouth water. great shot!

    • Thanks! Apparently the natural-bulb lamps are really helpful for some people… I haven’t tried them yet, but I’d like to. Your photos are great for shooting at night! Love your dessert collage. How did you do that?

      • You’re sweet!
        Actually, I signed up for foodblog forum at foodblogforum.com and they’ve got some really great tips much like your shooting mouth watering food photos. you actually
        One of the posts included a link to creating those photo collages. Amazing what multiple photos of food can do for a really boring post! I’ll be using the collage feature a lot more. 🙂

  9. I found this fascinating because I’m a garden photographer and so many of the pointers you picked up from Penny (as well as the ones Don added) are applicable to garden photography. Lighting is key (in our world, images taken in very early morning light, late afternoon light, and on overcast days are best – avoid those harsh mid-day times); looking carefully through the viewfinder to make sure you avoid extraneous, distracting things that would be difficult to crop out later; and (in your case) getting the depth of field right. I think your photos are very good, and I’m glad you feel as though the workshop was worth it. The price sounds about right to me, especially for a one-day beginner’s class. And congratulations for deciding to step up to a DSLR, and for the prime lens choice. I myself am a Nikon shooter but I will forgive you – I also own a Canon G11 and use it a lot on trips. So keep shooting – you’ve got a great eye!!

  11. Fascinating and insightful article on the photography of food. One way to get good ambient lighting on an item is to use a Cloud Dome. I’ve used a Cloud Dome to take close up pictures of jewelry. Seems like it would work on food.

  12. This blog makes me want to drop everything and come a food photographer 🙂 thanks for all the tips!

  13. OMG. There are sooooo many Mexican restaurants here in Texas that could use this advice. …nothin’ worse than menu photos that make the food look as if it has already been digested!

  14. Food styling is a challenge. Though I never took a photography class but I have been taking pics for numerous years and now, because I’m a Chef I take pictures of everything I make.
    I also take pictures of people and all beautiful things.
    So coollllllllllllll

  15. I love how Photos can capture images in a way that gives us all that extra level of perception about a subject…Interesting post

  16. Thanks very much for this, really appreciate the summary points of the workshop you attended. I’m still learning the curves of photographing food, do check out my site and tell me what you think 🙂

    • Wow Nikki — you’ve got some great stuff. Can you please FedEx me some of those currypuffs? I would DIE for some of those right now. 🙂 With a side of slow-braised lamb shank with cilantro and sweet potatoes.

  17. This was really useful – I frequently struggle with taking food photos, too many of them end up looking blah! Lighting is definitely important, I am looking forward to summer because it means there will actually be daylight to use when I make dinner and want to take pictures of it, so I don’t have to rely on indoor lighting.

  20. Thanks for sharing this post. Love your food pics – brilliant.

    I am an amateur wanting to specialise in food photography and would like to shoot in natural light. I have food pics in my blog too. Enjoy shooting food!

    I have a camera that has a food setting so there is no flash but shots in natural light. Thank you for the tips from your class in Seatle.

    Cheers

  23. Thanks for the tips, Lesley! I’m always looking for food photography tips. Just through experience I’ve learned that natural lighting is best for my food pics. My kitchen is very dark with absolutely no windows. My dining room table is perfect though, because it sits directly under a skylight! 🙂

    I have a hard time taking pics of strangers AND people I know. We have the cutest cheese vendor. I’ve wanted to take a pic of her with her basket of cheese for years, but never dared to ask her. She doesn’t come around as often anymore, and I always regret not asking.

    BUT…I did ask my chicken lady if I could take a pic of her John Deere golf cart! 🙂 So I’m getting a little better!

  24. Really interesting post, and good tips! Great photos, too…. and now I’m craving bread pudding with gooey raisin sauce 🙂

  25. I’m with you Leslie! I love shooting any object you throw in front of me, but when it comes to people I get shy. I guess it just takes some practice. I love your photos by the way. Food is always fun to shoot!

  27. Great tips here- thanks a lot for that. I agree with kimhopf food is really fun to shoot and play around with- *sigh* if only I had just a little more time in the day.

  34. I spent a long time allowing my food photos to languish, feeling that I absolutely needed an SLR – then I too discovered macro and manual.

    Thanks so much for these great tips, Lesley.

    H 🙂

  35. Great post, written with clarity and style.
    I wish I could have attended that course on food photography, but thank you for sharing what you learned.
    When I had my kitchen rebuilt I had downlighters put in over the central work unit so that I could really ‘see’ the food as I put it on plates to carry into my dining room, as I have always loved good presentation. I wasn’t really into photography at the time, but this lighting has turned out to be good for food photos. I never use flash.
    One tip – I keep a stock of ironed tea towels in different colours so that I always have a good background colour to compliment the food when I take pictures.

    • Great idea on the tea towels. Just realized that 95 percent of mine are white. But I did just buy a bunch of colorful napkins — I should use those more. Thanks!

  36. Very useful tips. I have always been fascinated with people who can take very enticing pictures of food.

    I also didn’t know about the fixed lens being better than zoom lens in shooting food pics. Thanks a lot.

  39. Hi Lesley, something I have done with great results is go to the supermarket and ask for permission to take photos in the produce department. Some will say no, but it’s very likely you’ll find a store manager somewhere that doesn’t really care (especially if you say you’re a student, cough cough).

    Anyway, the lights over the produce section are more than adequate, and if you can get some shots after those automatic sprinklers give everything a little shower, you’ll get some great water droplets on the food as well.

    =)

    • Skillets: Wow, you’re hardcore! Never thought about shooting at the supermarket before… in Mexico, actually, the supermarket produce doesn’t look too good. Much better to buy stuff at the markets. I really should shoot more pictures there, though. I’ll tell them I’m a student. (Which I am! Just not in a particular school or anything…)

  40. Lesley, your food photography post may have received the most comments of any that you’ve done before. Is this true?

    Saludos,
    Don Cuevas

  41. Thank you for the wonderful tips. I had a feeling the flourescent lights in the kitchen were what was killing my pictures. I may have to look into a lamp since there’re no windows anywhere near the kitchen!

  42. Oh my gosh Lesley!
    Every time I read your blog I end up salivating… I don’t even like bread pudding and I am about to go out and buy some RIGHT NOW.

    Awesome post and photos and suggestions!
    a

  44. Lesley… great material you put up there on the photo tips, and I agree with many of your readers, your pics make me hungry! A few other tips for you that you may really appreciate. 95% of my inside food pics (see a few at http://oriley.wordpress.com/2009/10/23/a-portmanteau-recipe-caulitato-soup/) are shot with my small Canon PowerShot SD800 IS, a pocket camera with “Image Stabilization”, many pocket cameras have this now. Why? Because the Macro feature is WONDERful. I also own a Pentax *ISD digital SLR which cost me $1200 for the body alone, and 1/2 that more for a lens! Still… for food closeups, nothing beats a Canon pocket camera. Go figure.

    Another wonderful addition to my equipment is an inexpensive tripod which I’ve use at home for food shots for years, and a tiny tabletop tripod, super-handy, called a “Gorilla Pod.” They make one for point-and-shoot cameras, and one for “real” cameras as well. I just have the little one, but I’m thinking of getting the slightly beefier one for my DSLR as well. Do a Google search for these. They’re wonderful! One last tip on lighting. I ALWAYS shoot in “manual” with my Canon point-and-shoot. Why? Because I can set the white balance to match my light source. My kitchen in lit by fluorescent, so I use the fluorescent bulb setting on my little camera and the lighting is perfect. Not BLUE. No flash, ever. If you have to, you can bump the ISO up a notch or two, say to 400 or 800, and you should be able to hand-hold any shots in your kitchen. After all, those cinnamon buns aren’t going to be jumping around. I sold my almost new Canon PowerShot for a newer model with Image Stabilization and it makes all the difference in the world. I can handhold anything in the kitchen.

    I’m an Editor, Photographer, and Digital Image Editor by trade, so I learned some of these tricks over time. If you have a shot that you like, but would like to see if I could make it just a bit better, send it my way, I l-o-v-e working with nice images. I do a lot of my image mastery after-the-fact with Photoshop. I can adjust background blur (same as increasing your f-stop) enrich existing colors with saturation, bring out shadows, etc. Send me a pic you love that just lacks “something” and let me play with it. I’m in the works on opening my own online biz doing just that. But I’m not there yet. One last tip, though I know you know this one… everyone will agree… don’t EVER take pictures of people WHILE they’re eating unless you want to be greeted by a very unhappy face! They may not want to eat with you again!

    Keep up the great work. Let’s see more! ~ Les (les.oriley at gmail dot com)

    • Wow Les: thanks for the great tips here. I definitely agree it’s possible to shoot great photos with a point-and-shoot. You just need good lighting and NO FLASH. (Did I say that already?) 🙂 The other great thing about point-and-shoots is that you can match the lighting source with the settings on your camera — mine had different settings for fluorescent, tungsten, indoor natural light, etc. Makes things easier.

      Been thinking lately about getting Photoshop, or Aperture for my Mac. Need to do more research on whether they’re worth it. But I do appreciate the offer to send any images your way. Cheers.

      • Lesley: Glad you mentioned what you did. I’m now a Mac person too. Have been for almost 3 years. (I’m also a MCP, Microsoft Certified Professional) but I wouldn’t go back to PCs if you gave me one. (But that’s a whole ‘nother discussion!)

        I have used Adobe Photoshop daily with photos for 3.5 years. It truly is a fantastic tool. It’s also an art (using the program) that can never be “mastered.” I like that in a program, always a challenge and new things to be learned. But here’s a big tip:

        TIP: Instead of buying Adobe Photoshop for HUNDREDS of dollars, check out Adobe Photoshop Elements 8, here’s a link: http://www.adobe.com/products/photoshopelwin/. It has 95% of the tools available to you that Photoshop offers, but it’s easier to use. It even has some lighting adjustment tools that PS doesn’t have, and you can get it for $60 – $79. It’s a steal for what you get. I can’t tell you about Aperture, but there are hundreds, thousands of tutorials for anything you’d ever like to do with Photoshop. The techniques would be really similar with PS Elements.

        My one BEEF with Adobe. You can have their software on two of your computers. They say one for your desktop and one for your notebook. HowEVer, it is NOT cross platform! My wife has a PC desktop, and I have a MacBook Pro laptop. If this is your case and you want it on both computers, (which you would, and it’s not cheap) you would have to buy it TWICE. I bought the Adobe Creative Suite TWICE, but I’ll never give them that money again. They want $1000 just to UPGRADE the Suite. I’m unemployed right now, THAT’s not gonna happen.

        Anyway, There’s so much you can do with Photoshop. I wish WordPress would let us put pics in replies to posts. I’ll just have to put one of your pics and my tweak on my wordpress site for you to see. Okay, here you go with comparison pics, (although yours was great to begin with!) http://oriley.wordpress.com/2010/03/30/a-photoshop-picture-enhancement/.

        Drop me an email if you ever start messin’ with pics and Photoshop or Photoshop Elements. We’ll compare notes.

  45. Awesome post; thank you so much for sharing! I’ve been blogging for years (and photographing for many, many more), and just began shooting food. This was very helpful and I couldn’t agree more with you on the points I already did know. Thanks also for the links.
    This is so informative, I’m linking your post to my photo-blog (http://aksphoto.wordpress.com/) for others to see.
    Oh! And I LOVE your picture of the kid in the fish market! 🙂

  46. Great post, Lesley, thanks mucho for sharing your workshop with us.
    Once, when I was still cooking for a living, I watched some food stylists shooting for a cookbook. Much of the stuff not only wasn’t even food, it wasn’t even anything known to nature! Then it was dripping with glycerin. I like your approach soooo much better.
    Thanks.

    • Mexican Trailrunner: Funny you mention it — I actually read a few days ago that most food stylists *don’t* do all that chemical stuff anymore, and that they prefer to shoot food in its natural state. Most of the food bloggers I read say they shoot food naturally, too, although they may use Photoshop or another editing tool to brighten up the image.

      It is weird to look at food photos from 10 or 20 years ago, though. They look so saturated and strange. It was probably the motor oil!

  47. hi lesley! nice read and thanks for the tips. it really takes practice. =)

    don cuevas > you are so right about your 4th tip. don’t ruin everyone’s appetite.

    leslie > me too, i usually have a hard time taking candid photos of people. i’m trying to figure out how to avoid the blur when they suddenly move. i own a canon d10 and i usually use the kids & pets feature to do this but sometimes it doesn’t work perfectly. anyway, may you have the courage and opportunity to shoot that cute cheese vendor. =)

    fettucine > if you are using the usual digicam, use the macro feature. one of my favorites and it works like magic. not sure though how it works with D/SLR.

    to everyone > happy food shooting. would love to see more of these photos and would be good if it is accompanied by a good story or a detailed description of the taste and texture.

    cheers!

  48. Leslie,

    Thanks for all the tips. I really learned a lot from this post. And thank you for leaving a comment on my blog — otherwise I would not have found you and your great blog.

    p.s. I hope you can find fresh farm eggs.

  50. here i have some additional tips at food photography, usually i use large value at aperture, so the background can look blurry and audience can focused to food. second tips, you can use additional food utensils like spoon, folk, plate, glasses and other to make more nice

  51. Thank you, thank you, for the great resources! Much appreciated — I’m off to investigate them all, and possibly start a ‘mad money jar’ for a DSLR…

  52. Here’s a great tip that I just learned from my husband: clean the grease off your lens. I had been complaining to him that maybe my camera was deteriorating with age — it just wasn’t getting crisp details anymore, and maybe I needed a new camera? Maybe an upgrade from my HP point and shoot to a DSLR? He asked me if I had cleaned the lens lately. No, I hadn’t.
    Despite holding my camera not more than 8″ over bubbling and spattering pots, this hadn’t occurred to me. He was right. An obvious grease smear on the lens was the problem. I guess I’ll have to wait for that DSLR, the one I didn’t even know I needed until I read Leslie’s post.

    • Thanks for the tip Kathleen! I haven’t fried anything too heavy yet, although we did make Indian samosa-style croquettes last night. I guess I should keep my lens-cleaner handy. I’ll be rooting for you and the DSLR. 🙂