Shutter Sisters

snapping a slice of life

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Confession: The only thing I love more than eating food is photographing food.

Is it just me or does anyone else do this?

Sometimes I will plate a meal so that it looks pretty even though it’s going to be in my belly in two seconds. I’ve always cared about what my food looked like. If it doesn’t look good, I usually don’t want to eat it. As an artist, I’m always on a hunt for color, texture, and light. Food provides all three of these things on one plate!

This week, I’m inviting everyone over for a Slice of Life Tuesday Visual Potluck! Slice of Life Tuesday is a weekly photo challenge in which I provide a theme for inspiration and ask people to share photos from their everyday lives. For me, it has provided a way to stay creative and find the beauty in ordinary moments. And really, what could be more “everyday” than eating? It’s something we all have in common. We all have to eat. And those three square meals a day (or 6-12 in my case) provide ample opportunity for us to pull out our cameras.

So let’s feast! Cook up some of your most delectable, delicious, yum-tastic meals, and share a photo that will make our stomachs growl. If you don’t usually cook, try your hand at photographing your meal at a restaurant.

At one time, I thought about becoming a food photographer and spent a lot of time flipping through my fair share of food magazines, studying and ogling over the delicious photos. Through my studies, I discovered a few simple tricks that can help capture food at its best.

1. View your plate as art. Take your time plating the food. Think about composition and the rule of thirds. The same concepts that apply to art apply to plating your food.

2. Color. Color. Color. The camera loves color. Colorful food sets off triggers in our brains that say “Yum! I want what she’s having!” In addition, think about ways to bring color and texture into the background. Use napkins and tablecloths to contrast and enhance the food.

3. More is more. When it comes to photographing food, the more full the plate is, the more scrumptious it looks. Photograph the overflowing bowl of food before you serve it on plates. Or put more on your plate than you plan on eating. Sometimes, art wins out over practicality!

4. Find the light. If you cook in a kitchen with fluorescent lighting like I do, don’t be afraid to move the food to a different location. I photographed the couscous salad in the photo above outside on my deck. If you don’t have a deck, bring the food to a window that lets in lots of natural light or find a place in your home that is lit with warm light. You can sometimes find me in the living room with my camera and my breakfast because that was where the best light was at that moment.

5. Take a bite. If you look at any food magazine, most of the photos show the food as it’s being cooked or mid-meal. This is where the “slice of life” philosophy really helps. Use your food to tell a story. Take food photos that look like real life. If you normally have a fork on your plate, put a fork on your plate. If you want to take a bite, take a bite!

Above all else, enjoy the food! Before your meal gets cold, put down the camera and pick up the fork!

Bon appétit!

Image and words courtesy of Honorary Sister / Guest Blogger Darrah Parker. You can find her on her blog where she hosts Slice of Life Tuesday. You are invited to share your Slice of Life with her at the Slice of Life Tuesday Flickr Group.

Comments

  1. We went through a spell last winter where every mouth-watering, beautiful gourmet meal the guy made, we had to stop, photograph it, and post on Facebook. Finally, I said … "remember when we used to just make the food … and, um … EAT it?" So we knocked it off … for a while. But mid-day last Saturday, after I heard a lot of spontaneous banging and clanging and sizzling in the kitchen, I was greeted with a first: the most delectable, perfect home-made tenderloin (dangling over the bun, just like the ones at the fair), wheatberry salad and big, juicy dill pickle. That plate just begged to be photographed. Especially photogenic: the green, green pickle, which appeared almost translucent. Fortunately, the camera was only an arm’s length away.

    http://www.flickr.com/photos/moonpiepuck/

  8. I recently wrote a post about home-cooking and the love in it and intentionally shot the plate of food straight on and simple like the hearty country food I remember from childhood. I photograph food all of the time and have a file filled with food images. I am so bad that I will even photograph the food on someone else’s table in a restaurant. So far people have been happy to allow it.

    http://giftsofthejourney.wordpress.com/2010/07/16/home-cooking-love-southern-style/

  9. love the post, darrah!

    food photography is one of the hardest things for me. i’ve tried several times, and the food usually ends up looking absolutely awful. i think mostly because i’ve always tried in very poorly lit spaces. then i have to lighten the photo, and everything always just ends up looking very unappetizing. but it is something i want to learn and perfect. my sister and i have wanted to publish our own cookbook, and i always thought it would be a lot of fun to be a food photographer. here is one of my most recent attempts, and thought not that good, it’s the best i’ve come up with yet.
    http://itsjusthowiseethings.blogspot.com/2010/05/asparagus-and-pea-salad.html

    thanks for the great tips! i will definitely be studying and using them.

  18. love shooting food, but mostly beverages, but i just did this a few days ago for picture summer, a triptych in-through-and-out of my dinner. i shot the beginning and end by the windowsill for the better light source and the "action" shot on the stove…terrible lighting that i had to work on a bit to get something worthwhile.

    http://www.flickr.com/photos/46922592@N00/4829368646/

  19. My food and camera are almost inseperable! I think I’d be in heaven as a food photographer/blogger/chef. Your tips are fabulous too! I always have to move my food to the living room where there’s much better light and playing with food, adding color and props, is so much fun! I think the best part of food photography is that you get to chow down afterward! I love this post Darrah, thanks!

    http://www.flickr.com/photos/wantuhere/4816695567/

    http://www.flickr.com/photos/wantuhere/4382838549/in/set-72157617654638535/

  22. It really is all about the lighting…it took me a while to find that perfect spot in my house, but I finally did and now the photos are slowly coming together. The plating is the hardest, but taking your advice of eating a bite here and there might help out, just a little bit. 🙂

  23. I love photographing food!

    I’ve posted a few recipes on my blog and I’ve used that as an excuse to take more photos of food.

    Biscotti: http://bigmariolife.blogspot.com/2010/02/mmm-biscotti.html
    Soup: http://bigmariolife.blogspot.com/2010/02/days-in-kitchen-are-good-days-indeed.html
    Pie!!: http://bigmariolife.blogspot.com/2010/07/happy-pie.html

    When I’m traveling, I even take photos of food in the markets. It’s just so colorful and pretty! http://bigmariolife.blogspot.com/2010/03/friday-foto-cibo.html