Christmas food photography: 12 tips for stunning festive photos

The festive season is upon us and beautiful Christmas food photography is flooding our screens, from festive tablescapes and celebration drinks to seasonal recipes and gift ideas. As a food photographer you might be creating content for your own portfolio and social media or perhaps you're working with brands on their holiday marketing campaigns. Whatever your reasons for doing Christmas food photography here are twelve of my best tips to help you take stunning festive photos.

Choose a festive colour scheme

Colour plays a big role in photography and you can instantly make a scene feel Christmassy by using a particular colour palette.

Red, green, white, gold/yellow and brown are the colours I most associate with Christmas. Try consciously incorporating these colours into your scene to convey that holiday feeling as soon as your audience looks at the image.

Does Christmas have a different colour palette for you? If so, write down what those colours are and make sure you use them in your shots!

Use decorations as props

Props add interest and context to food photos, so it makes sense to add some festive items to really set the scene.

Get creative with what you use to support your main subject and use things you already have at home before spending a fortune on new props.

I love to use Christmas decorations like baubles, holly and winter foliage (real or good-quality fake ones will both work well), pine cones, ribbons and wrapping paper/tags, Christmas crackers and even entire Christmas trees!

Try dark and moody...

If you live in the northern hemisphere then you will likely be celebrating Christmas in winter. Personally, the shorter days naturally make me feel more drawn to the dark and moody style of photography for Christmas scenes.

To achieve this look I choose darker props and backdrops. I find that wooden backgrounds work particularly well for this and also create a beautiful rustic feeling in these seasonal images. Deep greens from leaves and foliage compliment the wood and darker mood too, along with twinkling fairy lights or candles (more on this later).

Or light and bright!

Christmas food photography also works really well with the light and bright style.

In contrast to the dark and moody styling, you will want to choose lighter props and backdrops. Colours like white, cream and gold work well and can easily be paired with bolder colours like red or green.

You can see in the two images below how I shot the mince pies in both dark and moody style as well as light and bright. Note how both images incorporate festive colours and props!

Compare these photos and write down all the things you can see from each photo that help to achieve the final look.

Play with fairy lights

There is nothing more Christmassy than a decorated, lit Christmas tree! To bring that warm, joyful feeling into your images try using tree lights or a string of fairy lights in the background.

To create the bokeh effect like you see in the mince pie image above, you will need to shoot with a large aperture (small F-number) such as F/1.8 to F3.5. This will mean that when you focus on the main subject which is closer to your camera, the lights in the background should look blurry and create a pretty, festive effect.

You might need to hang the lights about one metre away from your scene to get the full effect, so experiment and see what works for you!

Watch my YouTube video on how to create the bokeh effect

Think about the angle

Christmas foods are often beautifully decorated, especially sweets, so make sure you use the right angle to show off your main subject.

Flatlays are great for thin and flat dishes like winter salads, pies, cheeseboards and Christmas cookies. Straight-on shots will work well foods with height, like layer cakes and tall drinks or when you're capturing action shots with pouring and dusting. Finally anything between 15-75 degrees can be used for any other foods really! Just find the best side of what you're shooting and make sure you're highlighting the decoration or special part of the food.

Shoot wide scenes

Make use of your Christmas crockery and set the table for a wider scene. Christmas is all about eating together with friends and family, so by shooting a table scene you can create that sense of a mealtime rather than just a dish.

If you're not able to shoot the whole table then just set one place and imply that there is more happening outside the frame.

And get close up

Show off the pattern on your pastry and the detail on your festive cookies with macro shots!

Don't be afraid to fill the frame with details and textures to break up your series of images.

Capture relatable moments

Your audience will be more emotionally engaged with your images if they feel they can relate to what is happening in the scene.

Try to capture moments that many people can connect with or will experience themselves during the holiday season. Activities like baking cookies, enjoying a warm drink by the fire, tucking into a cheeseboard, clinking wine glasses are all things that lots of people will do at Christmas time.

Think back to previous Christmases and note down some things that you do every year and try to recreate those moments in you images.

Create a sense of gathering

Christmas is all about spending time with loved ones, so try to create a sense of gathering and warmth in your images.

One way to do this is to add a human element. You could capture your or someone else's hands in the frame holding a plate or serving up a dish. If you have some willing models you could even capture a wider scene of people laughing and eating together! If you do get other people to model for you and their faces will be in the shot, do encourage them to have a genuine smile and enjoy themselves as it will make the images a lot more authentic!

Another way to do this is to imply a sense of gathering by including multiple plates, cutlery and glasses in your frame. This is a good approach if you don't have any way of capturing real people in your shots, so you need to make your audience feel like there is a group of people enjoying the food.

Tell a story

Storytelling is the most powerful part of photography. By telling a story in your images you can make an emotional connection with your audience and they will be more engaged with your work.

By bringing together all of the things we've talked about in this post, you should be able to create an image that tells a story. It might be a small as serving a warm mince pie with a glass of mulled wine or as big as carving the turkey on Christmas Day, but if you can choose a moment to capture and use lighting, props and composition to bring that story to life you will create something beautiful and engaging.

Plan your shoot in advance

To help you create the best Christmas food photography you can, I recommend planning your shoots in advance. This gives you the time to think about the story and all the elements we've covered in this post so that you can set up your scene and nail the shot.

Read my post detailing the simple steps you can follow to plan your shoot and make sure you ace your Christmas food photography!