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4 Essential Composition Tips For Better Food Photography (with Bea Lubas)

September 29, 2023

Here are four essential composition tips that will transform your food photography, adding flow and a natural feel to your photos.

Composition is the part of the food photography process that is usually the most frustrating to students simply because there are so many elements and techniques to think about.

In this article, I joined forces with my friend Bea Lubas to bring you four essential composition tips that we use to make our compositions look natural and flowy.

These are easy composition tips that you can apply straight away. If you do, don’t forget to let us know in the comments or DM us on Instagram (@useyournoodles, @bealubas)!

So here are the four essential composition tips to help you compose your images more easily:

CREATING A SENSE OF FLOW (Anja)

Food photography is unlike a lot of photography genres. We, as food photographers, are there to create a beautiful composition. One thing that I like to create in my composition to make it appear more natural and organic is flow.

Adding flow helps lead the eyes through the composition and to your main subjects. There are many ways to achieve that, but my favorite is using curves.

Curves are imaginary lines that you use to place your elements inside the frame. It’s about positioning your props, dishes, and all the elements in the frame in harmonious progression.

Curves can take different forms. You’ll hear me speak a lot about the S- and the C-curve in the article Using curves in food photography and some other curves as well. But actually, a curve can take any shape that feels natural.

CHOOSING THE COLORS (Bea)

One of my favorite color techniques that you’ll see me use in my work over and over again is choosing props and the background in the same color.

This technique really helps to draw attention to the food, even if you decide to fill the scene with many items! And what color of props and background to go for?

This will depend on a few things.

Firstly, what color would help to enhance your subject? What color would make it ‘pop’?
Secondly, it will depend on the type of contrast that you’d like to create in your image. High color contrast can help to add a more energetic vibe to our image, and low color contrast can help to infuse our frame with a soft and gentle atmosphere.

When selecting a color, we can also consider color psychology and what emotion the selected color can help to evoke.

ADDING SOME NEGATIVE SPACE (Anja)

Using negative space in a composition can give it a sense of balance. Not only in busy setups but also in simple scenes, the visual elements need a counterbalance to make the photo more pleasing to the eye.

My favorite way of including negative space in a frame is when I intentionally leave place inside the composition, especially around the main subject. This gives the entire composition some breathing space, makes it less intense for the eye, and, at the end of the day, brings focus to the main subject.

Creating negative space is a delicate balance. Finding a sweet spot might take a bit of experimentation, but when you find it, you’ll see how more relaxed the entire composition looks.

CREATING A SENSE OF DEPTH (Bea)

A beautiful sense of depth can help to draw the viewer in and make our image more captivating, and it’s something I try to always pay attention to when building my compositions.

One of the techniques that I find very effective is to place the elements at different planes within the frame. Some items are in the foreground, some in the middle ground, and maybe some in the background, too.

When placing these elements around the frame, I also like to place the items one behind the other – the overlapping helps to create more sense of depth and make the composition look more natural, too!

WHAT’S NEXT

Composition is a beautiful yet delicate art. Knowing how to fill the frame so it tells just the right story is key.

To learn more about composition and put your new knowledge to practice, we invite you to join our 3-Day Composition challenge from October 5-7th. Get all the details in my IG highlights. But to dive even deeper into the topics + get more tips and our Composition Guide, head over here.

See you in the challenge!

How To Take The Perfect Action Shot In Food Photography

September 17, 2019

Are you just as in love with action shots in food photography as I am? Do you struggle with catching the right moment and have problems with perfect timing. You’re in the right place!

I’m going to help you with some short tips and tricks that will help you create beautiful action shots.

Action shots are one of my favorite types of photos when it comes to food photography. They tell a story, they are… well, actionable, they have this human element in them and they have such a distinct dynamic.

Have you heard the saying ‘Practice makes perfect’. I couldn’t agree more. The more you’ll try to do action shot the easier it will become.

But first, let me guide you through some tips that will help you grow your repertoire in food photography by adding action shots!

Let’s start!

1. Get a tripod

Unless you have a helper on hand (if you do, great for you!), you’ll need a tripod to hold the camera.

I find a tripod very useful for one other reason too. When taking action photos things, usually get quite messy. Even though you clean, I usually find that I missed a spot and it ends looking awful in the photo. I usually take photo of the scene before I even take the action shot. That way you’ll have a ‘clean’ photo which you can use in Photoshop to fix the mess that you might have missed. You couldn’t do that without a tripod since your composition would move if you handheld the camera.

2. Shoot in manual mode and set shutter speed first

Shutter speed is everything in action shots. It’s the most important setting, so you need to adjust it first. If you want a crisp sharp pour or sprinkle, you need to increase your shutter speed. If you want a blurry pour or sprinkle you have to decrease it. I try to use shutter speeds at 1/160 or above for crisp pours.

Second, adjust the ISO. I try to stay under 800, but since a lot of my photography is very moody and dark, I need to go up a little more.

Then, adjust the aperture. Unless aperture is really important to the story, I tend to adjust that last.

3. Focus manually

I never use auto-focus for action shots. It’s just too unpredictable and I would end up with too many unusable photos.

My tip for setting the focus point is to either focus on the spot where the moving food will hit the non-moving food or if it’s possible, place an object about as tall as the pour/sprinkle will be and focus on that object. Lock the focus and remove that object and take a photo.

4. Adjust your food to movement

Sometimes some foods are too small to see or too dense to flow smoothly. When I’m shooting a recipe, I don’t want to stray too far away from what real food will look like. Sometimes I need to adjust it, anyway. Like adding some water to a sauce, so it has a smoother spill, or using coarse sugar instead of icing sugar to make the grains more visible.

5. Remote control vs. Timer

There are a few options here:

Remote control: I don’t often use it for action shots. I suggest using it only when you don’t need to be as precise about the spot where the moving food hits the surface. Otherwise, there’s too much to think about and it gets very messy.
Self-timer: This is the setting in the camera, where the camera will take one photo after a few seconds after you push the shutter button.
Continuous mode: I use this one the most. This setting takes multiple photos in a burst but with a delay, so you have time to prep for the action shot.
Interval timing: Not all cameras have this, but it’s quite useful to take photos of a process that takes a long time. Like, if you wanted to take multiple photos of kneading bread. You can set the interval timer to shoot one photo in intervals that you set. It can be a second, or it can be minutes or even hours.

6. The right angle

Think about which angle will show the action best. You want an angle that really reflects the beautiful action. Also, think about the background. Is the background contrasting enough so the action will be visible and if there are any distractions in the background?

7. It doesn’t have to include movement

When thinking about action shots, we usually imagine something moving in the frame, but that doesn’t need to be the case. Have you heard of implied movement? That’s when nothing is really moving in the frame but there’s something that tells us, that it’s not a still image and there’s some action going on. Like in the photo below, where I’m cutting oranges. Nothing’s really moving but the knife and the orange wedges let us know that there’s movement in real life.

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The takeaway…

Action shots are fun. And messy. And the most beautiful pieces of art! They take practice and sometimes they take some ingenuity. But anyone can create beautiful action shots! If you happen to create some action shots I’d love to see them! Tag #useyournoodles and @useyournoodles!

5 Tricks To Master Dark And Moody Food Photography

February 5, 2019

These five easy tips and tricks will help you get better at dark and moody food photography and create jaw–dropping still life moody shots.

Hello to my first photography related post! I’ve been planing on writing about photography for a while and it’s finally time. If you know my blog then you already know I’m all about moody and dark. Will make some brighter tutorials in the future as well but for now let’s stick to what I love most!

I’m really excited to share my thoughts on how to achieve dark and moody in your food photos with just these 5 little tricks. Now, they are not the holy grail of food photography so you can make exeptions and play with what you learn here. These will guide you to learn more about how a moody and dark photo comes to life and maybe try some new things.

Let me first start with what I think is the most important in any type of photography.

1. Story

You will hear me talk about having a story non-stop. I truly believe that the photo must have a well written story in order for people to really understand the photo and engage with it. This will help you choose the props, setup the light, style your dish and also help you with your editing process.

Before even starting to cook what you wanna shoot you need to build a story around the star dish. Think about what atmosphere do you want, what time of day you want to set it in? What season it is? Where is it happening? Who’ll be eating it? Are they alone or are there more people? Is this a date or is it a lunch at your grandmother’s place?

Thinking about how your dish makes you feel will give you a lot of answers. Does it make you happy, does it make you nostalgic, does it make you proud? In my opinion, feelings are a huge component of a good food photo. So really dig deep, because trust me, this will improve your photography no matter the genre.

2. Tweaking the light

There are lots of ways and setups which help you achieve a moody and dark atmosphere. You can even get a moody shot in very bright even sunlit rooms, but let’s focus on the most common and easy thing you can do.

First of all, you need a very thin strip of light that lights your main subject, aka your dish. You can achieve this by blocking the part of the light that lights all other parts of your photo. You can use anything; I’ve used books, curtains, pillows… Use whatever’s handy and will hold still. I use black and white foam boards to either block the light or to use it as a negative fill. Negative fill means you place the foam board on the side of your subject that is opposite your light source and it will prevent any ambient light from hitting the subject, meaning you get nice moody shadows.

You can get foam boards pretty much everywhere. Hobby stores, office supply stores… They are cheep and light and you can get them in different sizes.

If you look at the photo below, you can see I’m using a white foam board on the left to block the part of light that’s hitting the background. If I placed anything behind the pears it would be in the shadow too. On the right side I have a negative fill. In this case it was a white foam board and a black paper clipped to it. See how you can create gear out of nothing 🙂

3. Use a tripod

Tripod is key to creating crisp photos in low light conditions. If your setup is very dark and your camera doesn’t handle high ISO very good, then it’s time to get a tripod. I’m gonna assume you shoot in manual mode (if you don’t I’ll be posting how to work manual mode very soon. Make sure you subscribe so you dons miss it).

Now, when you are shooting in low light conditions you are going to have to up that ISO and shoot at a lower f-stop if you want your shutter speed fast enough to prevent blurry images. One thing I hate in food photography is super grainy photos. If you are shooting at high ISO you will get more noise both in detail and in color. What an acceptable ISO number is will vary from camera to camera, but for mine, it’s 800 and above. Tripod solves the noise problem because you can set your ISO at a lower settings (ideally 100-200) and you can get away with very slow shutter speeds especially if you pair it with a remote control.

4. Dark(er) props

Dark props with everything I’ve listed above make the food really shine in dark and moody food photography. Dark props will make your dish stand out and complement it at the same time. You don’t want the props to draw your eye away from the main subject.

Therefore, search for dark backdrops like dark stained wood, old stained baking sheets or you can make your own. There are tons of tutorials on how to make them.

Texture adds so much depth to photos, especially if you want a moody shot. By texture, I mean props that have cuts and bruises, stains, bumps, scrathes… When buying props keep an eye on anything vintage, stained, old. You can check flea markets, thrift stores or in your grandma’s attic. Props that are matte and not very reflective will work the best because reflections in an overall dark shot are hard to manage.

One of the props that I like most for adding texture is fabric. Anythin from tablecloths, to napkins or apron. Linen is my go-to fabric!

I find it hard to get dark vintage ceramics, though. I suggest finding someone who makes their own pottery and find something fitting there. It’s always nice to support local craftsmen, right?

5. Post processing

The right post-processing will make your dish pop and help tell the story.

I love using local adjustments to boost exposure on everything I want to stand out. This way you don’t need to brighten the whole image but rather have control over what parts need some exposure boost. I love using Lightroom’s color sliders to individually set the luminance, saturation, and hue of any color. I use luminance sliders to help to brighten up only parts of the photo based on what color I choose. You can play with saturation and desaturate anything that’s distracting. And use hue sliders to color correct parts of your setting that aren’t true to life. Be careful, though! These must be minor adjustments otherwise you may end up with a dish that does not look like food at all!

A vignette is always welcome in dark and moody food photography. Be careful here as well. Always keep in mind that a vignette should enhance the shadows without looking like a filter.

Conclusion

When I first started with food photography I shoot light and airy although I always wanted to create the beautiful dark and moody atmosphere in my photos and failes every single time. This tricks helped me to create the dreamy dark and moody food photography that I always wished I could do.

I’d love to hear more about your struggles in dark and moody food photography. Let me know in the comments bellow. What do you need help with?