5. The 45 degree
Lets start with the most common type, the simplest of them all, and you are probably guilty of this as well. This style allows you to show the side and and top portion of your food. Its actually the easiest to create as our tendency is to point and shoot when taking photos. Its called such because you angle your camera 45 degrees from your subject compared to show the other sides of your photo.
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| Photos from White House Fusion Cuisine and Wine Lounge |
4. Bokehlicious
Here is another style of taking photos of your food–creating a “bokeh” or a shallow depth of field. In simpler terms, you create a focal point in your photo and the rest is “blurred out”. This allows you to creatively present your food by separating the parts of your photo–the foreground and background.
There are many techniques to do a bokehlicious food photo on a camera and alot of ways of fake it as well.One way is making sure that you arrange your food in an order that there is an “obvious” foreground and background, then create a middle ground. Place your focal point on the middle ground so that viewers will see the space between the two elements of your photo. Another simpler way is to place the focal point to the most delicious part of your food or setting your camera to macro mode. You can likewise use the aperture of your camera or fake it with filters.
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| Photo from the opening week of Vikings in SM Lanang, Davao |
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| Photo from my adventure in Little Tokyo in Makati |
3. Food Selfie
We’d like to show our food with human element as well and no better way to do it than to do a food selfie. I know I made up the term but don’t we love to show how happy or excited we are with our food? Need I explain more?
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| I don’t enjoy selfies but thanks to Dennis Li for taking this super happy moment of mine |
2. Hold up and down
Here is another technique that I use so often that I even dedicated a month in my personal Instagram’s project 365 last year. This combines the food and human elements in photographing your food. The style is self explanatory–you hold you food in an attractive background–either a wall, the table, the patterned carpet, a striking background. Combining the food with an actual part of a human being, your hands, makes the photo more realistic or original.
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| Sumo Sam’s special California Maki |
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| Eagles Bar’s Virgin Mojito Cocktails at Marco Polo Davao |
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| Starbucks’ Christmas Items for 2015 |
1. Flatlay/ From above
Topping my list is the Flatlay or anything you shoot from above. The flatlay can also be used for framing the text you wish to add to your photo. This is done by creating a negative space in your photo or placing your food items in the border of your photo. Shooting from the top shows pattern in you photos and its also creates a “festive” feel with all the dishes included. This style usually catches the attention of other people around you as you need to stand up on a elevated area, in your chair for example, to take a wide photo.
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| California is a state of mind from California Pizza Kitchen, Greenbelt |
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| From Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf’s Giving Journal event |
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| Blue Mojito from K1 KTV |
These styles are just some of the food photography style that I have observed and have used myself. IMHO, sharing about your food experience still tops the more important aspect of food photography.
After all, when people cannot relate on your photo, you failed in photographing the food. It means that you have not conveyed your message well enough to your viewers. Unlike human beings with emotions, food will remain a inanimate subject of a photographer.
So which food style is your favorite?