every time I try to read about photographing food I find those articles going on and on about complicated techniques which ultimately lead to great photos of… inedible things.

have you seen such articles? they sound like: use frozen food. use foam instead of whipped cream. use motor oil instead of syrup. fake ice.

grrrr!! who has time for that?? ok well, I guess professional food photographers do but not the rest of us

what to do if you want to brag about the lovely cake you’re just about to eat, not spend much time but still take a great picture? 🙂

use whatever you have

forget about motor oil 🙂 take your food and lay it on a nice table top. it doesn’t hurt to add a few elements like cutlery, herbs, sprinkled spices, seeds or powder sugar or any attractive kitchen items laying around. not all at once!

remove clutter

in my photo above I used a square of white cardboard (2 sides of a packaging box) placed some 20cm behind the glasses to hide the various colours of the kitchen behind the scene. the shallow depth of field helps with ‘hiding’ the square itself.

natural light is great

the cardboard also bounced some extra back-light on to the subject which was placed by a window. if you got too much light on your background you can do the opposite and use a black card to shadow anything but the subject

try different angles

simply test what looks best. I have added another photo of the same dessert taken from above ⤵️

textures

if you have time for post-processing look at enhancing textures

hungry yet? 😄

If you want to try selling your yummy dessert photos check out my reviews of Picfair or Stockimo! Here is a list of well-known stock photo agencies.