How to Capture Appetizing Food PhotosKiersten Frase uses the Tamron SP 90mm Macro lens to capture eye-catching images for her vegetarian food blog. |
Article by Jenn Gidman Images by Kiersten Frase |
When Kiersten Frase started her Oh My Veggies vegetarian food blog last year, she immediately realized the importance of having appealing images to accompany her posts. Frase had never been involved in photography before, but she quickly realized that her cameraphone wasn't cutting it. "My blog really started to grow," she says. "When you have a food blog, it's the images that really attract readers. You can't taste the food, you can't smell it - all you can do is see pictures of it. I knew I had to get a DSLR and the appropriate lenses so I could do my food photography more effectively." |
One of the lenses Frase uses for her food shoots is the Tamron SP 90mm Macro. With its fast F/2.8 maximum aperture, 1:1 ratio for life-sized close-ups, and 135mm-like picture angle that's ideal for capturing subjects in their environment, the 90mm lens serves as the perfect "portrait lens" for Frase's culinary creations. |
Read on for her tips on how to capture your own foodie photos. |
Completed dishes are fun to shoot, but don't forget about the ingredients. |
Make sure the focus is on your subject, no matter how you stage it. |
How much cropping I do depends on the subject. If I have a bottle of wine and a glass in the background, for instance, I'm not going to crop it, because I want more of the background with that glass in it--shots like that aren't just about the food, they also tell a story. But if I'm focusing solely on a food item and don't have anything else in the shot I need for context, I'll crop it down if I need to. |
Professional food stylists use a lot of tricks to make dishes visually appealing for commercial shoots, but food bloggers typically don't because we want to eat the food we make! There are a few styling tricks I use though. For instance, if I'm shooting pasta, I'll turn a small bowl upside-down inside a bigger bowl and then just place the pasta on top of that small bowl to add more body to the dish. I also always wipe the inside of the bowl or plate to make sure it's clean. You definitely don't want people noticing food splatters in your images! |
Optimize your lighting for the best photos. |
First, figure out what time of day works best for your shoot. If the day is kind of cloudy, I can usually take pictures any time. But if it's very sunny, if I try to take pictures around noon, it's just too washed out, even when I diffuse the light. For me, two hours or so before sunset seems to be the best time (you just get used to eating dinner around 3 p.m.!). I've noticed that, especially in the fall with the gray afternoons, I have to adjust my white balance in Photoshop, because you get a lot of blue in there on those overcast days. |
I take all my photos in my dining room, because I have an east-facing window there. I have a gauzy curtain on that window, which I got specifically for my food photography. Sometimes if the light is still too harsh, I'll use a scrim to soften it a little. I use a lot of white foamboard to reflect the light around. Now that it's fall, I'm also experimenting with some moody, darker shots - for that I use black foamboard to absorb the light. |
Examine the food you're shooting to determine your angles. |
Don't shy away from shooting foods that are notorious for being difficult. |
Don't be afraid to edit your photos. |
However, I've heard from food bloggers who are just starting out that think editing their photos is cheating - it's really not. When we had film cameras, the photo wasn't done until we developed it. When we edit our photos in Lightroom or Photoshop, it's the same thing: We're simply "developing" our photos. |
To see more of Kiersten Frase's images, go to http://ohmyveggies.com/. |