Master Food Photography Basics with iPhone

1. Intro: Imagine this. You're in your kitchen surrounded by gorgeous ingredients, tempting food, and you wish you could capture it on camera. Well, guess what? It's easier than you think. Let's dive in together and uncover the secret sauce to transforming everyday ingredients into mouthwatering images that will have everyone hitting that like button. My name is Olena Hassel and I'll be your guide to the tasty adventure. With over 250,000 Instagram followers, I've mastered the art of making food look irresistible. And now I'm excited to share my secrets with you. When I first started, it was just me, a small kitchen, and a bunch of fresh oranges. Armed with nothing but my smartphone, I set out to capture the vibrant essence. Those simple snapshots were the beginning of my incredible journey into the world of food photography. As I honed my skills and shared my creations, I quickly realized the power of mouthwatering food photo. My followers started asking for recipes and my passion steadily grew. I remember this just like today, that discovering the magic of natural light was a game changer for me. And now I want to share everything I've learned along the way with you. Whether you are a total beginner or just feeling a little bit stuck. I'm here to guide you and help you unleash your inner photographer. So get ready to embark on this delicious journey with me and we'll explore the ins and outs of food photography from choosing the right props to mastering the composition. Let's make your food look as delicious as it tastes. 2. Class Overview: Welcome to my food photography class. All you need is a humble orange and your trusty iPhone camera with just natural light and a backdrop, and everyday kitchen props will transform your food photography skills forever. First, let's find a source of light. We're looking for soft natural light coming from the window. It could be from a small window, a large window, could be from kitchen door, could be from anywhere. This will be the magic ingredient to bring out the best in your subject. For a light and airy shot, let's start with simple white backdrop. You can use a white poster paper, plain white cream or light gray sheet, or even a curtain, could be a shower curtain. This can be a background that will make your subject like a simple orange stand out. If you are in the mood for a darker moodier shot, let's gather some dark colored rustic props. To help our vibrant fruit, pop against the dark background, let's look for items like black poster paper, wooden shelves or planks, maybe old kitchen baking trays or cookie sheets, cutting boards, maybe a dark blanket, or something like that. These darker props will add the contrast to your photos. Remember that the most essential element in your food photography is light. 3. Shoot Set-up: Now, let's try and implement this theory in practice and set up two types of shots, clean and simple and dark and moody. Let's start with clean and simple shots. To ensure precision in your composition for well balanced shoots, activate the grid and level feature on your phone. As a rule of m, position your subject along the grid lines and especially on the intersection. This is the easiest composition rule to follow, known as the rule of thirds. And it's a handy trick to improve your photos. So every time you take a photo with your phone, please make sure the grid is on. Also consider what you wear to the photoshoot. I advise opting for neutral, black or white or or great clothing to avoid any creating unwanted color casts. Now, let me demonstrate this in action. I am using a single sheet of poster paper as my background with light coming from the right side of my subject. Let's focus on capturing the simplicity and natural beauty of the orange. At this stage, I don't want you to worry about composition or complicating your scene with slicing or peeling of the orange. Capture the fruit as it is. Take a moment to observe the light in the scene. For food photography, we want back lighting or side lighting. Now let's experiment with shooting our orange from the side where the light hits the orange on the side. From the back where the light hugs the orange from behind. Or on a slight diagonal between those two. Note which lighting you prefer, aiming to capture as much texture as possible, because texture equals deliciousness when it comes to food photography. Next, explore different angles. Try shooting from a low angle or straight on, then get a little higher and tilt your camera at about 30 to 45 degrees. Experiment with shooting directly from above. Each angle is appropriate for a different composition. See which one works the best for this one. Now let's review your photos straight from the camera and identify which one produced the best results. Remember the best photo angle is the one that picks up the texture beautifully and shows off your orange in the best light. Take note of this and record it in your workbook. Consider which shooting angle you prefer, which perspective gives you more texture and record your time of day and location within your home. Oh 4. Dark and Moody: Now that's elevate our photos by transitioning to darker background to a contrast and wow factor to your shoot. I set up my scene on a black poster paper. Let's begin by shooting a regular photo mode, and then switch to portrait mode. This will help you isolate and focus on main orange on your subject, making it stand out against a dark backdrop. Our goal here is to capture the texture and color of your orange. Please experiment with different angles and perspectives of the camera to achieve the best shoot. And for an extra challenge, try zooming in on the subject or cropping out the distractions and adding a strong vignette during the editing process. Sometimes my student asked me, which one is better light and airy or dark and moody. There isn't one bright answer. It's all a matter of preference. I personally prefer the photos on the dark background and will continue exploring styling basics, such as depth, layers, and prop play in these settings for the purposes of this class. And finally, here are some tips for shooting dark and dramatic images. First, choose darker background and props of similar color. Second, photograph of a soft light by small window or block some light from the large window. You can use your blinds or your curtains to do this. You could use a non translucent cards to do this as well and to limit the amount of light going into your shot. It may be useful to place blackboards or cards around you see to minimize reflections of the light coming from the walls. For more contrast, try moving closer to the window. And for best gear score effect, please pick bright subject and contrast it with the dark background shadows. And as always in post processing, experiment with white balance to change the atmosphere of the scene. If the white balance is a bit on a warmer side, your scene will be cozier. If it's a bit cooler, it will be more somber and moody. For your assignment, please compare this light and airy photos to dark and moody photos captured against dark background. 5. Composition 1: Adding Depth: It's time to bring your images to life. We can do that with adding depth with clever framing, and with styling using layers. First, let's look at adding depth. Great food photos create a sense of depth, making the food feel almost tangible, as if you could reach your hand and grab it. One effective way to achieve this is by dividing your sen into foreground, middle ground, and background. So let's imagine that and place your main subject in the middle ground, supported by the elements like a vibrant green leaf in the foreground, and additional items in the background, like more oranges. This instantly draws viewers attention into the composition and keeps it there. Here's a protyp. Try to blur or make the foreground and background out of focus so that the viewer's eye naturally falls onto and is guided towards the sharp focus point where the main subject is located. You can easily achieve this by switching to portrait mode on your phone. Ensuring your subject is in a sharp focus. Place smaller supporting elements in front and taller ones behind the main subject. Also consider using a color wheel to ensure the colors harmonize in your s. By aiming for complimentary colors, the ones that are on the opposite to each other on the wheel. Or colors from the same family that are close together on the wheel for cohesive blue. In practice, this looks like this. Place the main subject front and center, adding a vibrant green, leaf, and other oranges behind it. Keep the main subject sharp and crisp, allowing others to fade into the background. Experiment with ankles and lighting to add depth and drama to your shot. 6. Composition 2: Framing: Next sp is framing. Framing is about using the elements in your scene to create a frame within your photo. This technique adds depth and draws attention of your viewer to the subject, making it more lifke. You can frame your subject with a box, tray, plate, or even your hands. This helps separate the main subject from the background using textures, tones and depth. Let's put this into practice. I'll use a box with taller sides and fill it with oranges. To add contrast, I'll include some green leaves, and to make one orange stand out, I'll peel it and place it at an intersection on my grid. When I take the photo from above, I'll make sure to tap the piled orange on my phone camera to keep it in sharp focus while slightly blurring the background. To enhance the framing effect, I'll add a vignette around the edges in post processing. This will darken the corners to draw more attention to the center. Here is a quick editing demo on your native iPhone IOs editing app. I typically start with reducing shadows. I increase the contrast, boost vibrants, especially when shooting fruits, and add a bit of sharpness and definition. And lastly, I apply a very strong vignette to highlight my hero with that bit of extra framing. You might also think of adding droplets of juice to the peeled orange. Because this will enhance the story, evoke freshness, and vibrancy in the mind of your viewer. And by ranging oranges at various heights and overlapping them, you will create a more realistic, more natural looking scene with help of shadows and textures. We might consider cropping the scene to focus on just the part of the box of oranges, leaving the rest of viewers imagination. 7. Composition 3: Layering: Last, but not least, technique for adding life to composition is using layers. Layers are your key tool for making you scene look natural. Layering involves stacking elements in your frame or placing them one behind the other. This technique creates different planes within your photo, making it more dimensional and looking more natural. The key to successful layering is to keep it subtle, to keep it cohesive and proportional because everything in the photo should feel like it belongs there. There is nothing out of place. It all adds to the same story. Remember your supporting layers should never overpower your main subject or look forced. Creating contrast with layers is very important, and you can do it in shades, sizes, height, and textures, common overlapping objects to help each layer stand out while contributing to the overall composition. Here is your step by step demo. So your main focus is to place the main subject like the textured juicy half of the orange prominently on display. This is going to be our hero. For contrast, let's set it on a dark metal plate with sharp angles. The plate is old and it has nice, attractive patina. It's very rustic and looks great against the background elements. Now let's think of supporting layers. Surround the hero orange with green leaves, to visually separate from the overlapping oranges behind. This creates a sense of depth and a frame within a frame. Now, let's think of leading lines. Let's arrange the oranges in a wire basket to create a sort of a diagonal leading line that draws the viewer's eye to the main orange. And let's crop some elements to leave room for viewer's imagination. And lastly, here are your key points to remember. First is subtlety. You must ensure that layers are subtle and cohesive. Nothing screams. This is a separate layer. Everything needs to fit. Next is contrast. Use contrasting shades, sizes, heights, and textures. Texture is my favorite one. It always works, and it's always easy to execute in your home studio. Angle utilize a three quarter angle for dynamic composition. This ensures great depth within your photo, and it helps you visualize a main subject against the background. And lastly, blur the background elements to enhance depth within frame. By following these steps, you'll create a layered dimensional photo that draws the viewer's eye and enhances the main subject. 8. Shoot Demo : Now the time has come to finally apply all the concepts we learned in this final demo. Let's go ahead and set up our scene by the window or very close to it. It's a nice overcast day. I'm sitting up pretty close to the window because it's a little bit gloomy. There's no sunshine, and I'm going to assess the light as I go along. I like to think about the story ahead of time, and based on it, select the props. So first bit on the story is my hero. I'm going to cut my orange in half in order to show it's a lively juicy interior. It's very textured. It's very bright and it's very fresh. And I think that's the most attractive part of the orange. Thus, I'm going to focus on highlighting the virtues of this hero. And I'm going to select props that complement and enhance the overall story. For example, I'm going to include some kitchen props that are important for juicing the orange, such as a little wooden juicer. Also, a nice carafe into which the juice could be transferred. The carafe is peter. It's going to go very well with the background, which I chose to be my vintage baking sheets that have a lot of patina, and which generally look really, really great in darker photos. I'm going to use different props that are texturally different and also different in the color tone. Let's go ahead and start setting up or scene. Let's lay our baking sheets by the window, one behind, one on the bottom. The way they're going to support our entire scene. Our scene is going to be pretty compact, and it's up to us how to capture it. What to include and what to exclude. First, we start with setting up the layers, baking sheet, cutting board, then fabric material textured, maybe double plate, maybe a single one, and finally, the hero goes in. I make sure that it's lovely, shiny, and textured. And now I need to prop it up. I'll prop it up with whole oranges behind it. And I'm going to add a live leaf. I didn't have an orange leaf, but I had something that looks close enough. It's shiny and sturdy. And goes really well into the scene. And as I stop, I always take a photo to see what needs to be next. So the leave goes in, and sometimes it fits naturally and sometimes you have to rearrange it many times in order to get the composition just right. And notice how I put only three objects on my plate, and you can see that shadows are already forming and they are falling in a very flattering way on a diagonal. The second half of the orange is just to the side or in the front. There is a little juicer going in, and we're building our layers not just on top of each other, but also behind each other. In the front, we can see the towel picking in can see our hero in the middle, and then in the background, we can see the basket which signifies abundance. But also the background is going to be slightly blurry, and us it's not going to take away from our hero. Every time I stop and take a photo, it gives me a bit of information. What do I need to do with the light? I can highlight my hero by shooting in portrait, and thus blurring out the background and the foreground. I can also manipulate the light further. So if I think that the light is perhaps too bright and background is extremely bright and competing with the middle ground, I'm going to try and block it out. I'm going to take a test shot here as well to see if it's too dark. And it might be a little bit too dark, and perhaps the wooden board is a little bit too warm. So instead, I'm going to remove the wooden board. And I might just diffuse the light, or I might try and reflect the light back onto my subject. And I have to take a few test shots just to make sure everything is the way I want it to be. I'm going to use my camera, my phone from different angles, and I'm going to keep manipulating the light until I arrive at the shot that I really like. I am putting a little bit of diffusing fabric. This is part of a kit for any photographer, which contains a reflector diffuser. But you could also use a sheet of parchment paper in the same capacity. You can use a shower curtain. You can use anything that lets a bit of light through but is not completely blocking it. So it's already better because the light around the oranges is softer, which means the shadows are not very sharp either. I think the last thing I'm going to do is to try and reflect the light back into the shadows so that the scene is universally eliminated from either side. And now is the time to take tons of photos, take the photos from 35 degree, 45 degree angle, take them from above, take them from the side, take them on a diagonal, take them everywhere, and then compare your shots. Don't take the scene away until you've assessed all of the photos you took because there is nothing worse than cleaning up and then realizing haven't caught the actual prime shot. Now, you should have a lovely portfolio of photos from different angles and backgrounds. Next step is going to be to edit it. You could do so on your innate phone IOS editing app or you could go to Lightroom mobile. I use both, but I start with innate IOS app, which I'm going to give you a quick demonstration. 9. Editing: iOS & Lightroom Mobile app: I took quite a lot of shots. I'm going to go through all of them in order to select the best ones. This one is perhaps slightly washed out. This one is perhaps a bit better. Everything is in focus, and most importantly, the hero, which is half of our orange is in great sharp focus. If you look at some other ones, for example, this one, I really like how battery and blurred the background is. However, if I zoom in, I see that my half of the orange is not fully in focus. I'm going to go ahead and work with the photo that I previously selected. Let's go ahead and edit it in our native iPhone app. I click on edit on this photo, and I start with the Magic Wand tool, which is basically an automatic application in which your phone thinks, these are the best ways to highlight the texture and the color of your image. Let's go ahead and review each one of the editing tools available to us. So I clicked on Auto. Now I'm going to exposure. It's quite bright. I think I'm going to lower the exposure because I'm going for dark and moody look. Brilliance I think elevates the shot quite a bit, but I think I'm going to lower it a bit more in order for my photo to maintain that dark look. Highlights are down. If I lift them up, it washes out the photo. If I put them down a little bit, it creates more vibrancy, so I'm going to reduce them quite a bit. Next is shadows. Shadows are lifted, but I like my shadows quite well defined. So I'm going to lower them a little bit because it gives a nice three D shape to each one of the objects within the frame. Contrast is also a very important tool. It makes darker objects, brighter, and lighter objects lighter. So going to be quite handed with contrast. Brightness. I might give it a little boost. Black point. I think Black point is important to maintain the drama within the shot. Saturation, I don't want to go too far into saturation because the image becomes a bit more yellow. I think a tiny bit is sufficient. Vibrance, however, is very important to make the colors pop more. Warmth. If you want your photos to be cozy, you go in with the worms. If you want a cooler shot, maybe more dramatic and somber, you go in the opposite direction towards the cool. I think I'm going to go slightly towards the cool. Tint. It can be pinker. And because my colors are to do with red, it might be a good direction for me, or it could be greener, which would highlight the green leave. I think I would prefer an orange being highlighted. So I'm going to go in the pink direction towards the right. Next is sharpness, and I go quite a bit in with the sharpness, because it sharpens the texture. Of everything, every layer within this shot. You could see how the linen is sharper, how the edges around the orange are sharper, how the leaves are sharper. Everything is in sharper focus. Definition is almost the same as clarity. I'm going to go in quite a bit. I'm not going to touch noise adduction because this photo doesn't have too much noise, but I could go in a little bit. Lastly vignette, I think it's very important to apply a strong vignette, especially in dramatic photos like this. Because it sharpens your attention on the hero. And lastly, let's crop it. And when they crop, it's important to see what's where within the frame. First, let's select the proportion that's going to work for Instagram, which is four by five. And then we see where on the intersection are orange resides. This is the rule of thirds. If you can remember it, it's very important too. And I made sure that everything is in the right place. So what's in the intersection? The plate is on the intersection the lower third. We see our orange is right on the intersection. Another intersection is right by the juicer, which is wet with juice. It's very important to complete the story. Carafi is on the intersection on the top left, and so is the basket full of oranges, which gives a sense of abundance, but does not take attention away from our juicy half. Let's save it and go, give it a boost in trombile up. So I've now opened my light room mobile up, and this is my shot. I'm going to go into profiles. Your mobile light room is really very clever. It could give you suggestion based on what it sees. So there are some recommended settings. It's cans it and gives you something like this. Wow, I think this is better. So now, all I need to do is to maybe sharpen it slightly more. Add a bit of masking. So only the edges are sharpened. I'm going to go through my colors and see if I need any upgrades here. I think I'm going to touch the vibrant a little bit, elevated. Light, I think exposure is pretty good. Contrast is very high, very good. Shadows are good, Whites. No, I don't want it any white, maybe reduce the whites. And blacks. I think it's pretty black already. I don't want any blur. How about some effects? Vignette? Do we need a stronger vignette? Let's have a look. Might look even better and effects. We dehaze the shot quite a bit, which really really makes the texture pop. So dehazing is really a wonderful tool. It went in all the way to 46 if we reduce it. It makes it more airy. If we increase it, it sort of concentrates it and gives it a boost. Clarity, we could give it a little bit more. And I think because it's so textured already, we maybe need to reduce it and not increase it. Okay. This shirt looks very professional. I would be proud to share it with my friends on Instagram, with my clients, too. This looks like it's been taken with DSLR. I'm very happy with it. And I hope you can apply the same tips and tools to your images too. Please share them in the project galleries. And if you have any questions at all, please ask. I'll be happy to provide feedback. Please show me what you've got and have fun with it. 10. Class Project: I designed the class project to reflect everything we learned in this class. First, we're going to start with selecting a subject. Use an orange or some other piece of fruit that has great texture and great color. Then add some props. We need props that work well together that tell a better story. For example, if you're cutting an orange, a knife might be a mas, maybe a juicer and maybe a caffe, and maybe a cutting word. Think about it creatively and make sure the props work with your story. Next, set up a scene. Use natural light, use clean and simple background, and don't use too many distractions. Try different compositions, try odd numbers in your scene, and try different props until everything feels just right. Finally, capture the moment. Start shooting, use different angles of your phone. Use light coming from different directions. Try side light, try back light, try the light that highlights the texture to the maximum. You want great texture and great color in order for your food to look irresistible. Lastly, and very importantly, please share your work. Share your comments on your classmates work if you have any questions, just ask for feedback, and I'll be very happy to provide it. Please grab your cameras. Please grab your subjects, and I can't wait to see what you create. If you found yourself in possession of too many oranges, think of the next step. For example, you could try making a cake with those oranges or maybe even a marmalade. I'm going to link my Pinterest account in the description of this class, so you could see some shots for future inspiration. Have fun experimenting and shooting and creating.