4 TIPS to take your FOOD PICS to the next LEVEL !
Raised in the middle of the Alps between cows and lakes and educated at HEC Lausanne, Maxime Chatillon is both the person you want working on Growth/Business Development for your company, and the person you want to be travelling with (always taking pictures of everything) Yes! He’s a photographer. Before coming to Foodetective, Max studied Management at HEC Lausanne. He would also like you to know that he’s the inventor of the “Getting out of the friend zone“ perfect for — category and certainly the best Wing-Man you could have while going out.
Article Starts here:
Have you ever seen a gorgeous mouth-watering picture of food ? A picture so good it’s a feast for your eyes.
The next time you’re at a restaurant or food truck you take out your phone, open the camera app, take the picture aaand expect it to be a banger 🔥🔥🔥…
However, it’s not as good as you’d thought... Well you’ve come to the right place. 🙌 I’ll give you a few tips to make your friends jealous…
4 simple steps to go from taking pictures to actually Making them !
- Let there be Light ! ⚡️
- Bokeeeeh: “Aperture” 🕳
- Shutter speed / ISO 💥
- Play with the Composition 🔠 🔡
Light !⚡️
Indeed, a simple first step to take your pictures to the next level is light. You don’t even need fancy equipment, natural light is FREE ! So grab your food and go next to a window.
Here are two pictures of the exact same dish: Burrata ! “mmh che bello 🇮🇹”. Which one would you rather eat ? 🤔 If you said the second one, you’ve passed the test !
👉 By simply setting the plate next to a natural source of light, in this case a window, it illuminates the food, makes the colors pop and shapes the contrast between highlights and shadow ! It’s a simple as that. (In the picture on top, the food looks a bit grey … ).
Second example ( because we’re fancy )
Here the pictures in the middle and on the left are much more pleasing. The light gives much more saturation to the bright yellow. Even though, the picture on the left is hit by harsh light which creates a harsh contrast between the highlights and shadows, it creates a mood or “ambiance” (fancy). The picture on the right, on the other hand is a bit dull.
Bokeeeh ! 🕳
You might think bokeh is a Japanese dish huh? It’s not 🙅. It’s simply the blurry part of a picture.
Bokeh can be interesting to use to isolate the food from the background or focus on a specific element and give it that “Pro” look. However, it’s not necessary and you shouldn’t over use it 🚨: the goal is to get a sense of what the dish looks like, not have the food completely blurred. 👽
On a DSLR, set your aperture (or ƒ.stop) to ƒ2.8 or lower in order to get that sweet Bokeh ! Unfortunately, it’s not possible to do on phones (you can play with “Portrait Mode” on Apple or Android phones but it’s done through software. Experiment with the result). If you want the whole table in focus, consider shooting at ƒ.4 or higher.
Shutter Speed / ISO 💥
Shutter speed is basically the mechanism that makes the noice when you take a picture 📸. It’s the speed at which the camera “opens ” to let light in and “closes”.
The faster it is 1/200s, 1/500s… , the less light comes in, but the picture is sharp.
The slower you go 1/80s, 1/20s…, more light has time to “come in”, But the picture will be blurry because of slight movement when holding the camera in your hands. 👇
Set your ISO to Auto when shooting. Just bare in mind that a high the ISO 800 or more (depending on cameras) means the picture will be grainier…
Play with Compostition 🔡 🔠
There are various shots you can get from a simple table set. A wide shot of all the table, a closer shot with less dishes, overhead, 45° angle, action, close up…
That’s it. A few bases to get you started and fly with your own wings 🚀 !
Recap: As a starter, consider shooting near a window with the “Aperture Priority” mode selected. This means you control only the aperture ( or “ how blurry you want the picture to be: ƒ2.8 or ƒ.4 “). The camera will do the rest (Shutter speed and ISO ).
Once you feel more confident, experiment with different things, modes, themes... But remember, you’re here to eat delicious food, so enjoy my friends !
By registering on Foodetective, you’ll become two things: Smarter than the guys next you (unless he’s registered) and the person that people like to hang out with when looking for restaurants, bars and secret spots. (I’am just saying)
