What Makes a Good Instagram® Food Photo
Lesson 2 from: Food Photography for Instagram®Penny De Los Santos
What Makes a Good Instagram® Food Photo
Lesson 2 from: Food Photography for Instagram®Penny De Los Santos
Lesson Info
2. What Makes a Good Instagram® Food Photo
Lessons
Lesson Info
What Makes a Good Instagram® Food Photo
so first and foremost, food should just look delicious in and of itself. If it doesn't look delicious, it may not need to be a photograph. That's the biggest key with photographing with your phone for instrument. I can't tell you how many times and I follow some wonderful people on Instagram and they don't know how to shoot food, and they'll photograph something that looks delicious to them. But it just doesn't translate on the phone. And I've done that, too. And then I'm you know, just sometimes it just doesn't translate. And then you have to say to yourself, You know what? I'm at this amazing restaurant. I'm around these incredible people. I'm just gonna be in this moment and not worry about capturing this food. Um, the other thing I see that people do is they photograph food, and I don't know what it ISS can't tell if it's it's a like do fried rat or what is it you know, So it should be readable. People should be able to identify with food immediately. I mean, that's the same with j...
ust photography. In general, you really want people toe connect, so they should be able to understand what it is you're photographing. Make it easier for them on back to that whole idea. Like they should say, You should say, Yeah, you should feel that. Okay, I dropped in a few of my photos. These air instagram images, IPhone images. Ah, built a pizza oven this summer. And, uh, it's like the most amazing thing I've traveled like all these countries and all over the Mediterranean you'll see pizza oven since we finally built one myself. So, uh, started making a ton of pizza. So, you know, it's it's nine. AM here, so let's have a pizza for breakfast. So anyway, you just want to think about almost everybody I know that shoots food, does a lot of overhead. I always try to get people to really think about shooting food from many angles. So eggs, I think, one of the most beautiful things to photograph. It's kind of a no brainer, and they almost always look good, especially if they're sunny side up eggs look amazing. And then you break the yolk, and it's like, Okay, a great food photograph should have color, composition and light. Those are the three basic elements of just a great photograph, but it applies to food as well. So color you want Think about the color. Can I go back? Yeah, I can go back. So just be thinking about how color works you want. You want nice color. You don't want muted colors. Composition. You want to think about what's in your frame, How you're using the elements around the food to help. Kind of contribute to that story, right? And then light. You want to think about the light? I don't have an example of light here, but I will color. Okay, this is, uh this is this is from my phone. It's not from a camera. I am not one of those people that shoots from my camera and then migrates it to my phone and then puts it on instagram. I do not do that. I'm everything you see on my INSTAGRAM account comes from my phone. 100%. Um so unless it's a screenshot like I did this morning of the creative life course, but you'll be able to identify it if it's not eso color. Just look for nice color again. It's eggs. I mean, I think I have a ton of eggs in my instagram feed. Um, composition. Just make it engaging. People put people right at the table with you and then light. Look for steam, rising a window coming through and just photograph the light. This is eggs. This is really about the light. While you might be like, What the hell is that? It's it's eggs with bacon. So okay, so creative devices these airways to help you elevate your photographs. Um, so I look for shadows, these airways to kind of make your photographs more engaging. They'll kind of bring people in faster so that it would elevate your images to make me feel like more special. So I was in for shadows. I look for a beautiful light. That's the first thing I look for is just beautiful light a moment. A moment is like if you can get a moment in a photograph, it's perfect. So moment would be the exact like when the steam was rising from those eggs. That's a moment, Um, when someone's serving a slice of pie and, like, the person at the table is smiling or their eyes are closed. You know, I was at this This, uh, this dinner a few weeks ago, and my friend made multiple soup and it was the most beauty. She like takes the she makes the broth. It takes 24 hours. She'll excuse this chicken, she clarifies the broth. It's like, unbelievable. And the multiple soup is there, and there are three people in front of me. I was on the other side of table, so three people in front of me, and like one, they both the two people were like sucking it down. The other one was just like she had this smile. It's on my instagram, but that was the moment, you know, It just kind of it was that good, You know that everybody was like tilting their bowls, and people were just happy. That's a moment. Details. So details are just like sometimes getting really tight on food or really tight on, uh, glazes or drips can be really beautiful and artistic and kind of unusual, and and and communicate yum in a way that maybe overall shot of the food doesn't so just keep a detail in mind. Right and rule of thirds. Always think I was tell people toe like you see a frame and you see like this subject, don't always center it. I mean, just try breaking the frame up into thirds, right? You guys all know that rule, but just think about it with your with your IPhone. So this is shadows, and it's also details, and it's also light. I mean, it's kind of so the more of those creative devices that you can get in one photograph, the better your photograph. ISS. Okay, so composition, color light. This is muted color, but it's kind. I love that about it. Um, this would be light and composition and color. So this was like this this onion that we pulled from our garden and I just put it in this doorway, opened the door and it was on a table, and I just photographed it, and I thought it felt painterly and beautiful. One. You saw the Wilton, the dried roots and the completely dried top just, and it would also be detailed. So this would be light color detail. I would say this is rule of thirds and this is a moment. This is the moment after the meal, and those were some of my favorite photographs. You know, I like I think some of my the best images I've ever made with ones that you know happened well after the meal was over. So this would be rule of thirds. This would be color. And this would be moment, you know, just just kind of always being curious and never stop looking. This would be detail, you know? Also, guys, I have to say, I I kind of surround myself. I have arrived home. All my friends are great cooks, my partners, and unbelievable. So I, in the subject matter in my life is high. Like I my odds My ratio is up because I do see some beautiful, beautiful thing, so hang out with chefs.
Ratings and Reviews
a Creativelive Student
Not what I expected. Shouldn't food styling be an essential part of this? It's like being a photographer but not being good at composition...
Jesie Schilling
I love how she took a picture with her phone but I rather used my camera and it gives more better photos and lighting but with a phone you can post it on your own websites and that's way I signed up for this websites.