Everything about Food Photography

Also known as floating and flying food photography, don’t limit yourself to thinking that your food has to remain stagnant during your photoshoot. That’s right, taking your food off the plate, deconstructing it, and giving it some movement could be exactly what’s on today’s menu. 

This kind of food photography can be very complicated, involving a team of people assisting you, and multiple frames to capture each element of the dish that will have to be edited together into a composite image later.

Keep in mind, this doesn’t mean you have to make an incredibly elaborate setup or even throw food across the room to achieve the flying food effect. Instead, floating food photography could simply mean sprinkling seasoning onto food, or squeezing lemon juice onto a dish and capturing that motion.

Essentially, if you’re photographing food in a setting or manner in which we wouldn’t normally eat it in real life, then you’re probably playing with some form of conceptual food photography. 

Conceptual food photography is quite a broad term, which is why it can encompass so many different styles of food photography. Primarily, conceptual food photography picks some sort of idea or concept that you want to convey and then uses food items to portray it. 

For instance, photographing the ingredients of a cake rather than a fully baked cake itself. Or, we can focus on viewing food items through lenses that we wouldn’t normally have access to. For instance, a cross-section of a soup bowl that shows the soup from the side without the entire bowl containing it. 

Not too surprisingly, conceptual food photography can rely quite heavily on post-production editing.

Negative space food photography is all about considering the space around the food. You will have a primary dish, but you will also consider the space around the dish to make the image more interesting visually. This can be achieved by playing around with composition and lighting to make it more enticing while using the negative space to elevate what you’re communicating with that image. 

Keep in mind that balance is incredibly important when considering negative space in food photography. Too much negative space and your image could look boring and a little too minimalist, and empty. On the other end, if you add too many props and additional food items around the dish, you will likely lose the main focus entirely.

It doesn’t take an expert to know what this idea entails, but it can be challenging to strike a balance to make sure the minimalist aesthetic is working to your benefit. And in case you are struggling with taking food photos that feel a little too cluttered and busy, let’s take a step back and chat about minimalist food photography. 

All about letting the food be the star of the image, minimalist food photography avoids the excessive use of props and other distracting elements. Instead, you’ll likely find that a neutral backdrop is used, as well as neutral dishware. You also might notice more natural elements worked into the photo like wood and metals.

Still life photography generally focuses on inanimate objects or commonplace items like vases, plants, shells, clothing, and yes, food. 

Try finding inspiration from still life paintings from the masters in art history. Use food as the vehicle to create beautiful still life scenes. Think about the direction of the light, the composition, and how each of the elements in your scene are interacting with each other. You can also start incorporating still life food photography into your work by focusing on single ingredients rather than fully plated meals or constructed scenes. For instance, a bowl of fruit or a plate of cheese. 

Did you know that food photography doesn’t just have to be about plated meals and single-ingredient photos? Food photography can also encompass the photography shown on a packaged food label. Or the product photography of a packaged food product.

For instance, that granola bar that you buy every week at the grocery store, more than likely, there is an image of the granola bar on the outside of the box. Or what about that favorite canned soup that showcases the soup on the outside of the package? 

If this doesn’t appeal to you, you’ll also often find that packaged foods are shot for marketing materials. For instance, if that granola bar comes in multiple flavors, you might need to shoot an image that incorporates all 5 flavors into one image.

One easy way to give your food photography a more elevated edge is to add a reflective surface to the image. It doesn’t necessarily have to be a mirror, but just the addition of something reflective will help with visual interest. 

For instance, try using plexiglass when deciding on what surface to place your food items on. It helps to add a sleek and modern aesthetic to the final image. 

If you want to take it a step further and give your image an even more modern feel, try adding kitchen gadgets to the image. For instance, a sleek coffee maker or a stainless steel toaster could do the trick.

Soups, stews, and especially drinks like coffee, smoothies, and cocktails could all benefit from a little splash in the image. 

That’s right, this idea might be a little messy, but it can add creativity, dimension, and movement to your image without having to get too wild. Simply put your camera into a continuous shooting mode and be sure to start capturing the image before you create the splash. 

The result will be an image that feels much more dynamic and interesting than if the image was just of a drink on a bar or a soup on a table.

When you think of food photography, you probably don’t think of comedy, but here’s the thing about photography: You can have fun and get silly with almost any style. 

With food, you will likely be adding props and weird/interesting items into the image to convey that silly factor. For instance, look at items around your house that have nothing to do with food and see if you can think of quirky ways to add them to the image.

While we strongly encourage you to push boundaries when it comes to your food photography, in some cases, going back to your roots and staying on a more traditional path might benefit you. In particular, we love a good food flat lay for this.  

Simple in nature, you can incorporate this style when you really want to let the food shine. Arrange the food in an appealing way, place your dish close to window light, or another diffused light source, and shoot from above. Food photography is all about making the food look as appealing as possible. This might mean styling your bird’s-eye-view scene by adding extra details around the dish, like fresh herbs to entrees and icing to desserts. Including extra styling elements could make all the difference in your imagery.

Styling your food photography with fresh ingredients in the backdrop is a quick and easy way to make your food look instantly fresh. Cut halves of a fruit to have in the shot or use other fresh ingredients from the dish placed strategically as props.

Styling the food on a small plate is a good tip for any beginner photographer. When you have a small plate, you’ll have to be selective and intentional about what food you have on the plate and how it is styled – it’s much easier to photograph than having big mounds of food.

Strategically using water droplets on some of your objects can make for a really fresh look and it can also add texture to your pictures. These work well on things like fresh fruit or vegetables, or when working with drinks that you want to look cold and refreshing. Invest in a spray bottle from the dollar store to curate this style. If you need the droplets to last for a long time you can also u

Having fresh garnishes to use to style your next food photography session is always a great way to add to the freshness of the pictures. If you are planning to grow your business as a food photographer, try growing some garnishes at the same time – things like berries, basil, rosemary, mint, etc.

Try having your food styled with a bite strategically taken out of it. This is a fun way of food styling that will humanize the food a bit more and adds a unique element to your photoshoot. You are going to want to have the bite taken in the most strategic way where the food still looks delicious but also real.

Being creative with the cutlery is another easy way to add unique styles to your food photography photoshoots. The fun part about cutlery is it can really change the style – whether you are using your grandmother’s antique cutlery, wooden pieces that make for a rustic look, or going modern and chic. The sky is the limit.

The focus of your food photography has to be, none other than… the food. To make sure that the food is always the central point in the photograph, you are going to want to make sure that you aren’t using any patterns that are too busy or any colors that are too bold.

As a rule of thumb, when it comes to styling your food photography always remember that less is more. Sometimes as you are photographing and trying new things you might find something is missing and try adding in props, but sometimes what the photo needs is to take things out. Try it next time.

Okay so you aren’t eating the fruit right? So it’s okay to choose fruit that is not quite ripe yet, it’s actually better for your food photography shoot. It helps to have apples without bruises or avocado that is still hard and won’t look mushy in your photographs.

Another different styling technique in food photography is to cut your food in different ways. For example, if you are cutting different fruits to have as props in the photograph you may have some in halves and some in wedges. It’s the simple ways of styling that will go a long way in your shoots.