Mama’s Guide to Food Photography.

Food photography does not have to be complicated. Capturing the beauty and flavour of a dish can seem intimidating, especially when your food is a hot mess. The main thing to remember when it comes to food photography is lighting. You can have the fanciest cameras or use a phone (my photos are all with a phone btw) but lighting your food properly is the most important thing.

Tips to remember when taking food photos:

• Natural light! I know I lighting was important but i meant it, natural light, away from direct sunlight or soft artificial white light is a must.
• Angles: Change it up, take pictures from every different angle you can think of, flat from the top or to the side to capture layers.
• Backgrounds: Create a scene, don’t get too cluttered and busy but find yourself a clean or aesthetically pleasing surface, use your ingredients to decorate the open areas in your photos. I went for an old wood board and shabby chic’d it to get that feel I wanted.

Things to avoid when taking food photos:

• Photos are dull: Sometimes when we take food photos colours can seem a bit dull compared to your dish in real life. Use a photo editing software to bring back the vibrance in the colours of your dish. We don’t want to make your dishes look fake but we just want to bring back the life and punch of your photos.
• Blurry 🙁 : Be patient, if your photos are blurry from the steam coming off your dish then try placing a little fan next to your food and blowing the steam away from you whilst you take photos. Be patient and keep your camera or phone still, and don’t be shy to take lots of different snaps.

Some products i’ve used in the past

You don’t need a fancy camera or even the newest phone. Most of the photos i have taken for both online and the printed cookbooks have been taken with my Samsung s9. Not only is the camera great, but they also offer the ability to edit the photos directly on the phone and even has a food filter that focuses right on the dish.

This particular camera model (Cannon EOS M10) might be a little out of date these days, but this camera was once my go to. It’s light, easy to carry around and offers colour correction ability as you photograph with wifi options so that you can send photos direct to your phone or laptop to publish right away.

If you live in a dark place these these beauties are a life-saver! these white soft-boxes are a great to light up the room, the diffusers help bounce light off your plates so that you can get that “natural” light vibe.

Let me know how you get on, try making some new recipes and photo graph them using our tips. Send us your photos on the socials and make sure to tag @MamaLotties & #MamaLotties so that we can see them!