General Tips for Home Food Photography

There are so many photos of food out there, most of them badly taken. There are simple ways to photograph your food and make it good looking and scrumptious.

First you need a good light source.

A simple desk lamp will do. Your bulb should be a white (daylight) fluorescent one, as bright as possible. A 15 to 30 watt daylight type fluorescent bulb should give you ample illumination.

Next you need a piece of white translucent paper

Such as Vellum or Tracing paper, about 1 foot by 1 foot square up to about 2 feet by 2 feet square. You will use this to soften your light by placing it in front of your lamp about six inches away from the bulb.

Position your food on a table.

Position the lamp at the back (left, center or right) of your food with the translucent paper about six inches in front of the bulb. Make sure the lamp casts a light from the back to almost the front of your food subject.

Try to keep the center of your food in focus.

Use your auto-focus for this. If you so desire you may want to use manual focus instead. Anything outside your subject can be out of focus to give more attention to your food. With your auto-exposure try to lock-in on your subject’s center. The back may be slightly over exposed, the front darker, richer and the center perfectly exposed.

The result should be something like this…

Or like this.