Food photography is fast becoming a very popular photography niche, from food bloggers sharing recipes online to brands wanting to sell their products, and restaurants competing to attract customers its safe to say there is a huge market for it! Whilst there are professional studios and large commercial sets dedicated to preparing and styling food perfectly for the camera, it’s also completely possible to photograph food from the comfort of your own home. This is exactly what I have been doing for the past 18 months and in this post I’ll share how you can do food photography at home too!
In this post we cover:
Global community of home-based food photographers
As a result of the pandemic and global lockdown, more and more people found themselves picking up their cameras and photographing moments in their own homes and local environments. Since mealtimes come around several times a day, food is obviously a popular subject to put in front of the lens!
I’ve met a lot of people through social media who have said that they discovered their passion for food photography during the pandemic and now there is a massive community of food photographers on various platforms such as Instagram, Pinterest, Facebook and personal blogs.
And guess what? Almost everyone is doing food photography at home with incredible results!
Take a look at my portfolio to see more of my recent photography – all done at home!
Let’s take a look at what you need to start doing food photography at home.
Equipment
You really don’t need much equipment to get started photographing food. If you’re a complete beginner, then I suggest to start with the absolute basic tools and get really comfortable with them. Once you’ve mastered the fundamentals of photography (i.e. lighting, composition, colour theory), then you can add to your toolbox with more equipment.
Camera
Obviously you need a camera, but it doesn’t necessarily have to be a top of the range, spangly new camera! Grab whatever you already own and really get to know how it works. Whether it’s the camera built into your phone or a digital camera, start with what you’ve got.
Set aside some time to explore all the settings available; take photos as you adjust different things and try to see what the differences are. If you’re using a digital camera for the first time, by all means start with the automatic mode, though I do recommend getting to grips with manual mode as soon as possible because it will give you so much more creative flexibility in the future!
There are lots of blog posts and video tutorials online that explain the basic settings and how to adjust them for different camera models. Just search terms like “understanding my camera settings” and you can choose sites that explain it in a way that makes sense to you!
Don’t worry too much about camera lenses if you’re a beginner. I’ve seen people take stunning photos with their built-in phone camera and there’s no reason you can’t do the same! As for a digital camera, the standard kit lens that usually comes with a new body is a great place to start and will give you enough options to capture different angles and moods. If you are interested in getting a new lens, this post by Rachel Korinek of @twolovesstudio is a great place to get ideas about which lens is right for you!
Flat, neutral surface
You will need something to put your food on in order to photograph it! A sturdy, flat surface, like a table, is key so that you can safely place and move objects around your scene. As always, start with whatever you can use in your home, like a dining table, coffee tables or desks. Try to use something that you can move fairly easily, so that you can adjust the position of it if you need to.
Surfaces that have a light, neutral colour are also best for beginners. This is because you don’t have to worry so much about matching or clashing colours in your scene, you can simply focus on the food and styling. Start with a light wooden table, a white desk or even a large grey tile (that’s what I did!) as your surface to practice. The image below is one of my own from 2020 when I didn’t own any kind of backdrops or photography equipment except my camera and I used a large (heavy!) stone floor tile that a friend had leftover from their kitchen renovation!
Hardware stores are also good places to have a look for cheap, makeshift backdrops. I’ve used wallpaper samples in the past or you could even try making your own backdrops by hand! Of course you can also buy ready made backdrops – the ones I currently use are from Capture By Lucy and Club Backdrops.
Note that the closer your surface is to your light source (more on lighting in a moment!), the brighter your scene will be and the darker any shadows will be. As you move the surface away from your light source, the amount of light that reaches your scene will decrease and the shadows will become softer. It’s good to start with your surface about 1-2 metres away from your light source and if possible at the same height as the light source, not below it.
A few simple props
I know it can be tempting to go all out and buy tonnes of beautiful new props when you start doing more food photography at home, but I really recommend sticking with a few simple props at first!
Plates, bowls and cutlery that are matte (i.e. don’t have a strong shine) are preferable because they won’t reflect light in unexpected ways. I also found that smaller side plates and serving bowls are better too – too much food on a giant plate can look unappetising and seemingly oversized crockery can feel heavy and clunky. Some cloths and fabrics are also great for adding layers and textures as well as making the scene feel a bit more real and lived in.
Props with neutral colours like white, cream, light browns and greys are also best to start with so you can focus more on your food, styling and composition.
As you get more confident and develop a personal style you can invest in more props with details, textures and colours. Don’t forget to look in your own kitchen and home first, you might find some items that are perfect for food photography or setting a scene meaning you don’t have to spend any money at all yet!
In fact, when I first started my blog I was living in Argentina with my boyfriend’s mum and only used what she already owned because I couldn’t justify buying anything only to leave it behind when we came back to the UK. Sometimes it was frustrating because I felt that I couldn’t develop my personal style, but on the other hand I learned so much more about food styling and composition, which in hindsight I think it was actually really great! The images below were all taken when I was living in Argentina in 2020 with my mother-in-law’s items.
Tripod (optional)
When I first starting doing food photography at home a lot more back in January 2020 I didn’t have a tripod for about 9 months and I wouldn’t say it’s most the important thing to have when you’re learning the basics of food photography.
Working without a tripod will encourage you to move around your subject more and try different angles, it’s a great way to freestyle your shoots and just go with the flow. Just remember that because you’re holding the camera with your hands there will be some movement or shake (we humans aren’t capable of holding anything completely still!), so the shutter speed of the camera shouldn’t really go below 1/125 otherwise your images will be blurry.
A tripod, however, keeps your camera perfectly still thus eliminating any problems associated with shaky hands. This is great for low lighting situations because you can have a slow shutter speed (i.e. below 1/125) and your images will still be in focus. Tripods are also helpful for flatlays (when the photo is taken from overhead, above the scene) because you can adjust the composition until you’re happy with it and then take the shot, especially if your camera has a screen and live view. If you want to create images with your own hands in the frame then you’ll require a tripod and probably a remote trigger too.
Don’t get me wrong, there are lots of benefits of having a tripod and I do love mine, but if you aren’t in a position to buy one right now then please don’t worry – you can still take great photos of food without one!
Light source
Photography is all about how light is manipulated and captured, so one of the most important things you need in order to do food photography at home is a good light source. Lighting is a vey big topic in photography, so I won’t cover everything here, but we’ll go over the basics to get started.
Lighting for food photography: An introduction
Natural vs artificial light
Light can come from the sun through the windows in your home during the day, which is referred to as natural light.
If the sunlight is shining directly through the window causing harsh shadows, this is called hard or direct light.
Sunlight that is blocked by clouds or thin curtains is softer and is called soft or diffused light.
Light can also come from specific lamps and light boxes, which is referred to as artificial light.
There is no right or wrong type of light source in photography, it all depends on personal preferences and style! I like to use natural light most of the time because I prefer the look and feel of my images when I shoot with both diffused and direct sunlight. However, I do have some artificial light boxes that allow me to do photography in certain situations, like in winter when the days are much shorter and natural light is limited.
Study the light in your home
If you’re fairly new to food photography, then I suggest starting with natural light sources in your home. Why? Because it’s free! Look for the biggest windows and identify which way they are facing – the direction of the light entering the window can have a big impact on your images.
Take a couple of days to observe how the light moves through the windows you intend to shoot near. Does the sun shine directly into the room? If so, at what time of day? Morning and evening light tends to be warmer and creates yellow and orange tones in our images, whereas daylight and blue skies are cooler and create bluer tones in our images. Making notes of your observations will help you figure out where and when is best for you to plan a shoot.
If you find that there’s a lot of direct sunlight coming through your windows, try softening (“diffusing”) it with a thin white or grey piece of fabric or curtain. You don’t want to block the light entirely, but just enough to soften any very dark shadows and bright highlights so that you don’t lose the detail of your subject.
Note: it’s best to avoid skylights if you can. Light coming from above can be problematic for photography and may cast unwanted shadows on your scene.
Direction of the light
Light can enter your scene from different directions, which will affect your images in different ways. Let’s take a quick look at the various directions of light used in food photography.
Sidelight
Light can come from the left or right side of the scene (called sidelight), meaning you are standing next to your window perpendicular to the wall to take the shot. This is probably the most common angle for light in food photography.
Backlight
Light can also come from behind the scene (called backlight), meaning you are standing opposite your window, facing it when you take the shot. This is a beautiful angle for capturing highlights and textures in food and drinks. In the images below you can see that the light is coming into the scene from the top of the image, creating lovely highlights and picking up the textures of the smoothie bowl and lemon tea.
Back-side light
Finally, light can come from the back and side at a diagonal angle into the scene, meaning you are standing somewhere in between the side and back light positions, or you have angled your surface. This is more of a creative decision and can create interesting shadows in your images.
In the images below you can see that the light is coming into the scene from the top left of the frame, casting shadows in a diagonal direction to the bottom right.
The best way to understand light in photography is by practicing! You don’t have to use food you’ve made yourself, or even food at all when practicing – shop-bought food, glasses, bowls and other household items are all perfect for spending an hour here and there playing with light and observing how the shadows and mood change.
How to shape and manipulate light for stunning food photography
Editing software
After you’ve taken photos of your dish you’ll probably want to edit them. Good editing can bring an image to life and the creative decisions made in the editing process are subjective and personal – it’s one of the ways you will define your own style.
Whilst it’s possible to buy presets (ready made edits that you can apply to your images with one click) and save time editing yourself, I do think it’s important and much more satisfying to learn to edit your own photos from scratch. This is because you’ll learn to edit in different styles, meaning your images will be able to evolve with you over time (which they will – trust me!) and you’ll be able to work with a wider range of clients (if that’s one of your goals).
The most common editing softwares on computers are:
I personally use Lightroom for the majority of my editing, supplemented with Photoshop for certain tools. You will need to pay for these programs in order to use them.
Lightroom for mobile is free and actually very powerful, so it’s a great app to use if you don’t want to spend any money on editing software yet. Other popular photo editing apps for mobile include:
- Snapseed (free)
- VSCO (free with in-app purchases)
- Afterlight (free with in-app purchases)
How to edit photos is a HUGE subject in itself, so we’ll go into more detail on this topic in a separate blog post!
Patience
The last thing we’ll talk about today regarding how to do food photography at home is something we all need all the time: patience. Food photography not something you learn overnight and you’ll definitely see people creating amazingly beautiful images on social media that you can only dream of shooting one day. But use that as inspiration and motivation to keep practicing your own skills!
Be patient as you learn about your camera and observe how light interacts with your scene. Be patient as you evolve your style and add new props to your collection. It’s an exciting process and too often we want to rush to the finish line before we’ve even begun. I’ve been doing food photography more seriously since January 2020 and I am still on the learning curve!
Enjoy the journey and be kind to yourself along the way.
Follow accounts on Instagram that inspire you and save posts you love to a collection in your app! I also love to use Pinterest to get ideas for a specific dish by typing “[enter food/dish here] photography” into the search bar. For example, if I’m planning to shoot cupcakes I might search “cupcake photography” in Pinterest and save or sketch compositions and styling that I like!
Food photography at home: my set-up
To finish this post I want to share a picture of my exact set up when I photograph food at home. I usually shoot in the dining room, though sometimes I do use other rooms in the house depending on the time of year and how sunny it is.
You can see the big window on the left is my main light source (it’s east facing) and I’m diffusing the light coming through it with a thin, white piece of fabric and an oval diffuser. I use both because neither is big enough on its own on sunny days! Sometimes I don’t need them depending on the weather and time of year because the light is already diffused (e.g. by clouds).
I have a large dining table which I use as my flat surface most of the time. Then I put my backdrops, props and food on top of the table. I have my props under the table in a box where I can easily get to them if I want to swap anything out.
I have a tripod to stabilise my camera, which is especially useful for flatlays (images taken from directly above the subject) but not absolutely essential for a beginner in my opinion. When I use the tripod I have my camera in the Live view, meaning I can see what my camera sees on the screen, allowing me to make composition adjustments as I go. When I don’t use a tripod, I sometimes shoot with the live view and sometimes look directly through the lens to take the shot.
The black rectangle on the table near the bottom of the image is a small, fold-out bouceboard with black, silver and white sides. I can use this to reflect the light back into my scene if I need to – I will cover this in a separate in-depth lighting blog post!
Now it’s your turn!
I hope you found this post on how to do food photography at home helpful! This is the first of my blog posts about food photography, so do let me know if there is a specific topic you would like me to cover and I will do me best to answer your questions!
Leave a comment below and tell me if you like this post! Ask me any questions about food photography at home or request a topics that I can cover in a future post!
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Hey Linda!! Loved this blog post for beginners! I was one of those people that found my love for food photography during the pandemic too! 😂 I felt like you were speaking right to me! Thanks for showing us your setup! I don’t know why I never thought to put my tripod on the table for flatlays! I’ve been shooting with the food on the floor because my tripod isn’t tall enough 😂 But now I know to put on the table, so thank you!
Hi Elizabeth! Thank you so much – I’m really glad this post resonated with you! Haha, I used to shoot on the floor too but then I learned that the light intensity quickly decreases the further you are from the light source, including when you move below it! If you have big windows that go down to the floor then you won’t have a problem shooting that way, but if they’re like mine and raised off the ground then I definitely recommend trying to put your tripod on the table 🙂 Good luck!