Foto: F. Wehrmann
This article titled “How to improve your food photography” was written by Felicity Cloake and Jill Mead, for theguardian.com on Thursday 6th February 2014 12.32 UTC
It was the ginger cake that did it. I’d come up with the perfect recipe for my G2 column – sticky, squidgy and fiery sweet – only to have a reader describe the accompanying image as looking "like something the dog regurgitated". Ouch. Clearly, taking pictures of food and "food photography" were very different things.
My pride dented, I embarked on a crash course, badgering professional food stylists and photographers for tips and obsessively studying cookbooks, magazines and blogs, trying to figure out what works and what doesn’t.
I’m still no pro, but here are my dos and don’ts.
Do think about colour
I love the greens and whites in my shot of watercress soup (above), and the way the bubbles in the soup and the seeds in the bread mirror each other. It’s simple but very pleasing. Use natural light to get the truest colours, and keep your camera still by balancing it on something, or invest in a mini tripod – you can get one for about £15 online.
Do embrace Instagram
If you take pictures with your phone, you need to master this brilliant photography app and related social network. The range of crops, frames and filters can turn any old shot into something surprisingly arty. Don’t go overboard: not every slice of toast benefits from a tropical, technicolour makeover. There are also great photographers on Instagram for inspiration, such as Jamie Oliver’s food photographer David Loftus. Follow him for creative ideas.
Do experiment
Just because you’re going to eat the dish at a table, doesn’t mean you have to shoot it there. Maybe you’ve got some atmospherically weathered floorboards, or an Indian throw like the one I shot my banoffee cake on – play around until you find what works. I photographed some scotch eggs on a traffic island and I still think it was worth it for the green of the grass.
Don’t just point and shoot
The aim of your photograph is to make the viewer hungry. Don’t just take a picture, like I did with this disastrous photo of a plate of scrambled eggs, or with stodgy, beige rice pudding; think about the story you want to tell – whether that’s an inviting fork poking out, the corner of a colourful tablecloth or a few cherry tomatoes scattered artfully around the edge of the frame.
Plus, putting something so revoltingly sloppy in the centre of the plate is never a good idea.
Don’t use a flash
I learned the hard way with this jug of custard that photographing food with a flash can, as one photographer put it, lend photos the unappetising whiff of the forensics lab. Natural light is almost always better.
Don’t waste money
Unless you’re really serious, don’t splash vast amounts of cash on fancy equipment. An ordinary camera phone or even a point-and-shoot camera is absolutely fine. Keep an eye out for interesting props and backdrops to make your pictures come alive. Car boot sales and charity shops are great places to pick up the odd willow pattern plate or set of beaten-up silver cutlery for next to nothing. Hoard them – you never know what will come in useful.
Jill Mead’s basic rules of photography
Backlight
This means lighting something from behind, preferably with daylight. You don’t see the window, but the light will fall on the food in a way that gives it depth and a moody atmosphere. It works especially well with pies and cakes.
Balancing elements
You need to create harmony between the size and weight of different elements. For a recent shoot of a pie and some tiny scotch eggs, I had to bring the eggs closer and push the pie back to balance the shot so it didn’t look like Land of the Giants.
Break into the shot
This is one of my tricks: crumbage. It’s about making the food look as if it’s been eaten. If I’m shooting a treacle tart, I’ll cut a slice, then another, then another, shooting each stage, until we’re left with a pile of crumbs.
Cropping
Instead of shooting the food by itself, I suggest bringing something else into the picture. It’s nice to see crockery or a glass, a napkin or cutlery, to add interest. Keep things pointing away from you as if you are sitting down to eat.
Depth of field
This relates to what is in focus and what isn’t. It’s determined by the aperture setting on the camera. If you crop in close on an apple, you want a shallow depth of field, a low aperture. If the apple is 5m away, you use a high aperture.
Lens
The best close-ups use a macro lens. A wide-angle lens gathers too much information and your shot would have to be tiny in the context of the setting, or filled with pointless detail. You come in tight with a macro lens: ideal for food.
Viewpoint
You can draw the viewer’s eye with light, colour, or an interesting angle. Take shots using varied depths of fields from above, side-on and at a 45-degree angle, and view each one on a screen to see which looks strongest.
Win a place on a Guardian Masterclass
To enter the competition to win a place on the Food Writing and Photography Guardian Masterclass, led by Felicity Cloake and Jill Mead, on Monday 7 April, click here.
Over to you: share your food photography
Are you an amateur food photographer or Instagram pro? Either way, share your best food photography and make us all feel very hungry in the process.
We’d love to see pictures of dishes you’ve cooked yourself, or mouth-watering shots of food you’ve eaten out. Juicy burgers, triple-cooked chips, gorgeous bowls of bright green guacamole… tell us what you were eating, when and where, and whether the food was really as good as it looks.
The best contributions will feature in the March issue of Do Something, the Guardian’s brand new monthly activities magazine. Please upload hi-res images so that we can publish them in print.
To take part, just click on the blue "contribute" button or download the free GuardianWitness app for your smartphone.
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