Hungry for food photography? New York Times photographer tells how to take great food photos

 

 

If you regularly peruse images of food on Instagram, you could be forgiven for thinking that food photography is simple, but it's not. It's an art form just like any other genre of photography and it comes with numerous complexities and subtleties that separate the cream of the crop from the rest.

New York Times food photographer Andrew Scrivani recently offered Resource Magazine's Robin De Clercq some tips for photographing food. The most important thing for capturing great photos of food? A single high quality source of light. That doesn't necessarily have to be artificial light, either, as Scrivani is a big proponent of utilizing daylight when possible.

As far as gear is concerned, Scrivani is a Canon shooter in general, but he also uses Sony for shooting stills. Macro lenses are important for him; he's become a fan of 50mm macro lenses in particular. His gear bag doesn't just have cameras and lenses though, he also carries a bottle of water, oil and a brush to give food a shine when it's necessary.

While he doesn't eat while shooting, he doesn't want anything artificial to be used on the food to spruce up the photos because the food will be eaten later. No wasting food here. Food also falls into different categories of how challenging they are to shoot. Darker foods are a bit trickier in general and iconic foods, such as a burgers, are easier he says.

For much more on food photography, including how food photography is like architectural photography and the different things you need to understand about the food in order to capture the best possible shots, see the full article at Resource.

To see more of Andrew Scrivani's work, visit his website and follow him on Instagram.

(Seen via Resource. Index image.)