Recently, I had a new article published on Digital Photography School about five food photography mistakes you might be making. Chances are, you’re making some of these mistakes with some of your images. There are other mistakes and that is okay. We all make them. Food photography is a process of constant building and assessing. Although you can learn the rules of composition, you will soon find that these rules are more like guidelines. Not every “rule” will work for every image. The more you shoot, the more you learn to shoot intuitively and consistently create work with symmetry and balance, that is pleasing to the eye.
Today I’m going to talk about one thing you can be doing that you probably aren’t and it can make a big impact on your work. It’s about creating depth in your food photography, and most of us that know about this trick struggle with utilizing it due to space limitations–especially if we shoot at home.
Those of us who shoot food images such as those found throughout this post, images that have a narrative quality or hint at a wider scene beyond what is portrayed within the frame, have a similar style of working. We set up our surface and props, place a background behind our set, and compose our food. Most of the time this background is relatively close to our subject, and herein lies the problem. This makes the food look rather “stuck” to the background.
Like in this image of the carrot and ginger juice. It’s fine. I like this image, but it could have been made better.
A better approach is to have the background far away from your subject. This creates depth and it brings a special quality to an image. Keep in mind that this means you need to have a decent amount of space to work with. It also means that you need to have a big background, especially if you’re shooting with a 50mm, which is considered a wide angle lens when it comes to food photography.
I recently watched the photographer Steve Hansen teach a class about still life and product photography on Creative Live. He was shooting a tablescape. I was heartened to notice that this table was a good distance from his backdrop. He had the space.
If you have the space and didn’t realize this point about shooting still life photography, pull your table as far away from your background as possible. It will create an appealing depth in your shots and blur out the line between your background and your set-up all the more, which just looks better.
I realize I haven’t update this blog in a few weeks but I’ve been busy writing elsewhere. I’m a regular contributing writer to Digital Photography School and contribute weekly for Expert Photography. I write mostly about food and still photography, although I’m going to start writing about more general topics, as well as topics on business.
If you want to catch up on my articles, click on the article titles below to be taken to the site. If you have any requests as to what you’d like me to write about, let me know in the comments or shoot me an email.
Thanks for reading!
Five Essentials of Doing Dark Food Photography
Are You Making These Five Food Photography Mistakes?
The Right Tools for Food Photography Styling
12 Tips for Styling Your Food Photography
The Best Camera Angles for Food Photography
How to Improve Your Food Photography with Natural Light
How to Use Lightroom to Process Your Food Photography
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