Food photography lighting tips – How to make your food photos look delicious! – Watch on YouTube
In this article, we have some fantastic food photography lighting tips that can improve the look of your images. Food is delicious, and it should look delicious when you photograph it too! However, there are many factors that can throw off the look and feel of your photo and put people off whatever scrumptious food you’re trying to portray.
We’re using ice cream as a great example of how tricky food photography can be. Follow along as we make changes to our shots to achieve the final image below.
Food Photography Lighting Tips
We’re going to start with lighting right out of the gate. Lighting is one of the most important factors when it comes to food photography. Get it wrong and your food will quickly go from looking appetising in real life, to unappealing in the image.
Our minds are trained to judge food. Evolution has taught us to look for colour inconsistencies as a sign of food being safe to eat. It’s therefore critical to get your lighting looking natural and pleasant to trigger the viewers’ appetite.
The first thing we need to do is think about the shooting environment. You may be at home with lamps and other light sources around, and these will affect how your image looks. Be aware of the light around you and remember that our eyes adjust to make everything look normal, but the same is not always true for a camera.
In our starting image, the environment is dimly lit, but with warm household lighting around the ice cream and showing in the background of the image. This makes our ice cream look far too warm… and who eats ice creams in the dark?
Lighting Control
We need to begin to take control of our light away from the random surroundings and into our own hands. To do this we introduce two diffused Cold White Lighting Arms to light the front of the ice cream. The colour temperature is slightly cooler than the camera white balance setting of 5700k so it makes the ice cream look like a colder white than the surroundings.
Diffusion is important when choosing key and fill lights. We want to avoid harsh shadows across the front of the food item. Soft light is much more present to look at and will make the food look more palatable. We do want a little contrast, so don’t light with a ring light or on camera flash!
One of the most important food photography lighting tips is to consider the mood of your image as a whole. Ice cream should look cold, but it’s rarely eaten in a cold environment. By this logic, we should have cool looking light on the ice cream, and warm light on the background.
We have introduced a colourful backdrop using our background gradient cards, making sure to choose something summery and warm. We also add a couple of new and important lighting arms. One Warm White Lighting Arm for the backdrop, and another is backlighting the ice cream to give the impression that the sun is still shining somewhere in the scene.
With all of these food photography lighting tips put together, we have an image that looks much more tasty than the starting shot. We have manipulated scene to make it look more natural, despite adding artificial light. There’s also the added bonus of better settings due to the additional light!
Don’t forget the details!
One final food photography lighting tip to think about is to pay attention to the details and the way food changes over time. This is especially true if your food is frozen like our ice cream, but it applies to hot food too.
As the ice cream melts, it changes. People often associate certain points in this process with the right moment to take a bite. For example, the steam coming off a freshly cooked steak says to the viewer that it is ready to eat. The condensation and melted look of the ice cream makes it look refreshing in on a warm day!
It does mean that food photography has a time limit though. Be ready to shoot and make sure your lighting setup is quick and easy to change on the fly so you dont run out of time!
Lastly, don’t be afraid to get a few close up shots to complement your wider image. Sometimes a closer look at the details can catch the viewer’s attention!
If you try any of the food photography lighting tips in this tutorial, make sure to show off your work! Just head over to the Adaptalux Macro Photography Group and post your results!
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