Photo Tip Tuesday - Week Six, Troubles with Food Styling
Monday, November 21, 2011
I've recently decided to dive into food photography. I love finding new aspects of photography to concentrate on and right now, its food! And the thing I have the most difficulty with I think is styling. Here are some apple tarts I made recently.
I've shown you my set-ups in past posts, like here, and I think I've got the lighting down pretty good. I like using natural light from my window, and bouncing it off a reflector. What I really struggle with though is styling.
Tips in styling I've learned so far: Use an ingredient in your final dish to help style, in this case, the apples. Try using opposite colors in your dishes or linens to help your food pop. The final dish was sorta orange-ish so I went with a blue table cloth, but I think the blue color was too pale to do much difference. I think I darker blue might've been nice.
Things I need to learn: placement of props, what dishes to use, how to move props around to make each shot look different, how to "tell a story" with my food photography, and really invite people in with my pictures, and how to make the dishes look beautiful, yet also look like they really might've just been on the table like that!
Any suggestions would be more than helpful!
Any photo tips you'd like to share?
Also, if you have any questions, or anything you'd like to see featured on Photo Tip Tuesday, please let me know in the comments! If I don't know the answer, I'll do my best to find out and write about it!
Before I forget, here are my favorite entries from last week:
Feel free to grab a button:
And now on to this weeks link up...if you don't have a photo tip to share, you can simply share what lens you used, what your settings were, or a step you took to edit the photo. (I'm not very picky!)
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24 comments:
I saw the words food styling and had to come right over since I LOVE food photography so much. I think your photos turned out really nice, Jaymi. Those apple tarts look delicious! My only suggestion is that maybe wouldn't have layed the tablecloth so flat...I think when you fold up a napkin or have multipy layers it makes for an interesting look :)
Oh my gosh! I'm thrilled you chose my photo as favorite! Thanks so much!
As for photographing food, you are like 15 steps ahead of me, so I've got no advice whatsoever. What you said makes total sense about your food and your tablecloth/dish/etc should be opposite on the color wheel. Makes good design sense I guess!
I think your photos turned out very nice; the apple tart looks delicious! The Pioneer Woman often has good food photography tips. She sometimes compares an old photo of a dish with a new photo to show how she's improved.
These photos belong in a cooking magazine. Simply amazing. I LOVE all these shots. Awesome work!!
Amazing pics with so wonderful and attractive colors.Thanks
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Cheap Flights to Accra
love the bright apples & blue cloth! personally i'm not a fan of the crumbs. i think the second shot down is the best: subject in focus up front & nothing blurry in the foreground. you do amazing things with different compostions though.. way more creative than me! that tart looks delish! ..maybe a pic with ice cream?? :)
Oh wow!! I love these. Such awesome shots. I am TERRIBLE at food photography. You did great.
Wow, Jaymi, you did a fabulous job on your food photos! I have a cooking blog and I'm always in such a hurry to take the photos. I wish they turned out like YOURS!
I find food photography really difficult. You did a great job!
Thanks for explaining this so well but also simply.
Your apple tarts look great, you're right food photography is really hard!
Nice pictures, that apple pie promises to be delicious.
I think you did a great job with these.
I especially like the 4th one here.
I wish I could give you some tips, but I have never given this a try.
Thank you so much for sharing this week at The Creative Exchange.
Have a wonderful evening!
lisa.
I think they're amazing! I am utterly hopeless at this, but feel like i got a few good tips here - never thought of using an ingredient in the recipe (duh )
These shots are so beautiful! They really do tell a story. I love your lighting!
Thank you so much for choosing my photo and tip from last week Jaymi. I am so honored!
I love your food styling photos. You mentioned that you want to invite people in with your photos and have the food look as though it could be found on the table. I truly think you accomplish that. I want to pull up a seat and fork and dig in and I don't even like cooked fruit :o). That is how stunning these photos are. Thank you for sharing!
So strange, foodstyling drew my attention too recently and then I felt sooooooo very much ashamed for how I photographed food. Your pictures are so good, don't think you need a lot of tips.... You'll find out yourself and I always like people having a style of their own.
Bye,
Marian
I enjoy photographing food, because I do find it to be a challenge. One thing I've tried with some success is moving around the setup, shooting at different focal lengths and angles.
I think you did wonderfully. :)
I'll offer my non-photography opinion, if you don't mind. I've been following your blog for a few months now and really love it but don't ever feel qualified to leave a comment.
I think the light blue linen provides the perfect background and with a darker blue the eye might be distracted by the boldness of the color. The subtleness of the blue really makes you focus on the tart! (which looks delicious by the way).
Incredible job - and great tips for us going into Thanksgiving.
Your apple pie looks so delicious.
Some great tips here. I agree with you that natural lighting is best.
Happy Thanksgiving.
Beautiful. I love using natural light. Looks yummy! Thanks for linking up with Capturing Beauty. Hope you'll stop back tomorrow!
Love, Traci @ Ordinary Inspirations
Totally agree, food photography is not as easy as people might think!
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