Food Photography Lighting

Food Photography Tips for Lighting

© 2010 Mia Rose

1. Decide beforehand whether you want to go high key, low key, or somewhere in between. Set your food up against the appropriate background and work out what lighting sources you will need to accomplish your goal. Pre-visualizing the end-product is the key.

2. Experiment with different lighting set-ups to make the food look as three dimensional as possible. One way to do that is by lighting the object in such a way as to highlight the shape and create as much texture as possible.

3. The placement of the main light is made to create shape. Your real challenge is not so much to learn how to light well, the real challenge is to learn how to see light and what it does to the world around you. The great thing is that you don’t need to be in a photography studio to learn this. You can study light anywhere you find yourself with a few extra moments.

4. Things to look out for when lighting food include finding ways to add texture. As a general rule of thumb, the bigger the light source, the less texture you will end up with. Small light sources are great for food photography. However, small light sources also tend to cause dark shadows. This is not necessarily a bad thing... shadows can be interesting too.

5. Food has different types of reflective qualities. The sheen of food often makes it look extra yummy ~ on the other hand you want to avoid too much glare on the surface.

6. An important part of food photography lighting is the use of reflectors or fill light. Mirrors often do the job quite well. Use less overall fill light than you think you should. The rule of thumb is that the less fill light, the more drama and texture you end up with.

7. Don't light the food from the front. In fact, it's a good idea to keep the main light as far back as you can without creating too much glare on the food surface.

If you found this page on food photography lighting useful, make sure to visit my page on photography tips for links to various photography tips pages on this site.

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