6 Food Styling Tips for Photography

Whether taking pictures of food is something you do for fun or it's part of your creative business, food styling is a tricky thing to get right! The pros make it look easy, but I can assure you, there's a lot more to it than meets the eye. Here are my 5 food styling tips for photography to get Instagram-worthy photos of your eats.
Food Styling Tip #1: Find the Right Light. Lighting can truly make or break a photo. Natural, diffused light is best. You want your photos to have depth, but no harsh shadows. If you need a little more light to bounce on your tabletop, try holding up a white napkin or something similar to bounce some light and brighten the scene. It's not the same as the fancy reflectors that professionals use, but it's a creative solution that will help in a pinch!

Food Styling Tip #2: Shoot From Above. There's a reason you'll see a lot of food photography shot this way. It makes for an interesting and beautiful photo! It's relatable and really invites the viewer in to your scene, since they're seeing it from your perspective.

Food Styling Tip #3: Shoot with Shallow Depth of Field. This is how you get objects to be crisp and focused in the foreground, and beautifully soft and fuzzy in the background. With a DSLR you can adjust this with your manual focus. On an iPhone, tap the screen where you want the camera to focus and that spot should appear crisper while the background should appear softer. Play around until you get a look you like.

Food Styling Tip #4: Consider Your Colors and Composition. While your colors don't need to be matchy-matchy, they should have cohesion and feel good together. Consider the 80/20 rule - 80% of your composition should be cohesive, and 20% can introduce elements of contrast. Composition goes back to the basics you probably learned in high school art class - unity, balance, scale, contrast, etc. Move around your tabletop elements and explore unusual configurations. And after every tweak, always look through camera! The camera will perceive the scene much differently than your eye. What looks good in person doesn't always translate through the lens, and vice-versa.

Food Styling Tip #5: Make a Little Mess! Perfectly styled food can look beautiful, but a little boring. (Although admittedly, the textures and slightly irregular shapes in the donut photo from Carnets Parisiens, above left, keep it from feeling stagnant.) Make a little mess and add some life to your photo! Drip some coffee onto the table. Crumple up your napkin. Spill some sugar. Take a bite and artfully scatter some crumbs. Capture a lifestyle moment, not just the physical food. This element of texture draws the viewer in and makes for a much more interesting pic.

Food Styling Tip #6: Give the Eye a Place to Rest. The photo above, styled by Ginny Branch, has a lot going on - but it's not overwhelming because there's space for your eye to rest. Remember, what you leave out is just as important as what you put in!
A neutral background like a white tablecloth will allow you to go a little crazier with your food arrangement without becoming visually chaotic as long as your arrangement has some breathing room. Also, notice how the clear glasses seem to disappear into the background? They add just a little texture without dominating. Solid-colored cups or cups filled with dark opaque liquid wouldn't have the same light and airy effect.
Bonus Tip: desserts and sweets are a lot easier to photograph well than savory foods. So if you just want to take a quick snap, shoot a photo of your cupcake and coffee - not your meatloaf and mashed potatoes.
I hope you enjoyed these 6 food styling tips for photography. You'll find more inspiration images on my Styling - Food Flowers Pinterest board. And I'd love to see your photos using these techniques - share them with me on Instagram, will ya?
Happy Wednesday!

Images: Lesley Myrick for 55 Downing Street, Ginny Branch, Domaine Home, The Brand Stylist, Carnets Parisiens, Stijlbloem, Decor8, Ginny Branch. Have something to say about this post? I'd love to hear from you on Twitter! Tweet me @lesleymyrick.