How to take food photos at home (Whitish-blight look) / by harumi

 

This is for the series of taking food photos from the previous post. The series continues to the last post, "taking food photos outside." Today, I present "How to take a food photo at home (bright-light look)."

Those are photos from the time I started using a DSLR camera back in 2010-11. (Resolutions are not high because I did not know how to control that camera.)

In the previous post, I was talking about editing points that sum up photo qualities. Today, I give a little tip on editing for a bright light look.

 

 

Let me quickly show tips on taking food photos at home and make it bright-light look with tips of 1. Use a white dish, table or put a white table-cross, 2. Control levels, 3. Make it in high contrast with colors.

  1. Use a white dish, table or put a white table-cross

    It's before editing, at time of the shooting. To use a natural light wisely, a white base under dishes really helps to edit later. I usually use a white table or white plates for shooting. If not, buy at least A3 size of white papers, and that helps to reflect natural lights and brightness adjustment on LR/Photoshop.



  2. Control levels.
    The bright look is all about brightness over the whole photo. On photoshop, you open levels and move the right point to left. That creates more shining light over the picture, however, keep your mind that brightness does not color off on the main food.


  3. Make it in high contrast with colors

    Because of the other whiteness around food, now you can use high contrast and add colors onto food for more visually popping out. In the previous post, one of the tips were for the basic of color luminance. In addition to the point, high-contrast with colors really works out for the whitish-blight look, and to make the adjustment tool is handy, food choice for the primary photo object, the colorful fruits, such as grapes, strawberries, berries, peach, etc.., are the best ones to use to practice high contrast with colors in whitish-blight look. Those fruits are visually great when they are mature enough to eat. (It means the mature high contrast colors on the surface) as compared with other “side-fruits," such as figs, persimmons, green apples, etc.. 

 

In the end, it's all about your preference and perspectives for what could be matching with whitish-blight look or dark-moody look in food photography.

Enjoy shooting photos at home. :)