When we started the blog, we were inspired to post all of our favorite recipes. However, we really weren’t paying too much attention to the quality of the photos. But over the last seven years, we stepped up our photography and food styling.
My first thought when I looked back at some of these photos was, “Really, Brian?” With a background in film and television production, I was kicking myself, “How could I put these photos out in the world?” As much as I loved my pocket Canon camera, it was high-tech for the times, I invested in a DSLR camera and a few lenses.
Basic Photography Skills
However, to better your photography skills is not as easy as buying a new camera. You need to use light, depth of field, and styling to your advantage. Natural light is your best friend, you should use it as your number one light source. Mid-morning and magic hour (hour before and after sunsets) are some of the best times to take photos. But when you don’t have a window or need to take pictures at night, build a light box with LED daylight bulbs. This will help you recreate that natural light and make your photos look so much better.
To make a shallow depth of field (when your object is in focus and everything around it is out of focus), you need to use the aperture settings on your lenses. The larger your F-stop, (f/16 for example), the more you will have in focus. The smaller your F-stop (f/2.8 for example), the shallower your depth of field will be and the less you will have in focus.
Once we figured out our lighting setup and manual camera settings, our photos started to look better. But they were still missing something; we needed to focus on our food styling. Not just focusing on positioning in the frame of camera (like using Rule-of-Thirds), but styling our food photos with props like spoons, plates, and crumbs. Fatima has been amazing since becoming the lead stylist. She always says, “You eat with your eyes,” and has been instrumental in the way our photos look today.
Favorite Food Photography Redos
After we started to drill down on the food styling, we went back to redo some of the worst photos and our most popular posts. One of my favorite plugins is our Twenty20 slider plugin, so I couldn’t help but make use of that on the photos below. Check out the before and after photos and use the slider to see the difference!
- Muddy Buddies: Close up is not always best…
- Slutty Brownies: What was I thinking?
- DIY Shell Wreath: What a little natural light can do.
- Red Velvet Truffles: Depth of field + in-focus = yum.
- Fried Oreos: Blame it on the Oreos being hot?
- Homemade Dog Cookies: Flat lay all the way.
- Old Fashioned Red Velvet Glazed Donuts: That glaze though.
- Old Fashioned Chocolate Glazed Donuts: What’s different? 🙁
- Old Fashioned Glaze: Fun fact – that milk in the ‘after’ photo is glue and water.
- Strawberry Summer Salad: *Palm in face*
- Oreo Stuffed Cookies: Could not be fixed in post.
- Sweet Potato Pie: Sometimes you just need to pull back a step or two.
- Mummy Pumpkin: So cute.
- Apple Pie: Makes me want to bake a pie.
- Calzones: ‘Before’ didn’t even look appetizing.
- BBQ Sauce: Add movement.
- DIY Instagram Coasters: Do it for the ‘gram.
- Hummingbird Cake: I don’t even know what I was thinking.
- Cookie Monster Cheesecake: Low angles are not flattering on anyone, even food.
- Apple Dumplings: While ‘After’ fell apart, the hand crafted leaf crusts classy up the dish.
- Red Velvet Cinnamon Rolls: We just had to reinvent the wheel with this one.
