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We devour food with our eyes, before we can even taste it. Some tips to make your food photos appear tempting – and a salad recipe!
By Kiran Srivastava
I’ve always been inspired by food magazines not only for the recipes, but also for the visual drool-factor. Yup, photos are the major culprits. Shooting food involves the time taken from brainstorming recipes, to prepping, cooking, visualizing the prop and styling ideas, styling, photographing and finally, eating!
Phew! That’s a lot of steps and a boat-load of patience indeed.
So, sit back with a cuppa tea and enjoy this visually fun food styling tips. I’ll try to minimize any photography lingo/jargons. Pinky promise.
Photography kit
The basic rule of thumb is investing in a Digital Single Lens Reflex or in short, DSLR camera. You don’t necessarily have to spend thousands of dollars. Just a basic beginner DSLR would do it.
A tripod is “always” recommended.
The next best investment is on a good tripod. There’s nothing worse than shooting blurry images as the end result. Whether you are shooting manually, automatically, with a prime (macro) or zoom lens, using a tripod is “always” recommended.
Essential styling tools
While taking photos might seem easy to many, styling foods can get very tedious and time consuming. Some of my essential styling tools to help me elevate common plating issues such as spills, rearranging noodles, ingredient placement are: cotton swabs, chopsticks, spritzer, cotton ball and tweezers.
Food props
The essential part of food styling is the ability to select props to suit each food recipe or idea. Having a variety of food props definitely broadens a styling idea. Using interesting cutlery makes a lot of difference to the end result. Avoid similar shades of colours in one styling. Colour contrast between background and food is essential to bring focus to the food and overall styling.
Interesting cutlery makes a lot of difference.
Textures and backgrounds
Food styling is not limited to what’s on the plate, but where the plate is placed. It’s important to achieve an overall balance between the colours of foods, background and surface colours/textures. Experiment by plating with different textures/colours of fabrics, multiple surfaces, using ingredients from the recipe, floral arrangements etc.
Lighting
Colour contrast between background and food is essential.
I love shooting in natural light. I think it brings out the best of both worlds – the natural look of foods translates seamlessly in the photos. Try shooting using natural lighting as much as possible. Shoot during the day near a window where you would get plenty of natural sunlight. Most importantly, avoid using flash at any cost.
Post processing software
Whether you are photographing for leisure or as a professional, investing in image post processing software allows flexibility for image editing. My favourite post processing software is Lightroom by Adobe. There are still quite a few affordable software options out there.
And now, for the best part – a recipe! Bon Appetit!
Pan seared baby carrots and paneer salad with orange ginger spiced dressing recipe
Ingredients:
170 gm paneer, cubed
12 – 15 baby carrots, sliced
1 tbsp cooking oil
½ cup edamame or any whole beans such as channa (garbanzo) or rajma
Try shooting using natural lighting as much as possible.
A handful of salad greens like baby spinach, lettuce and sprouts
For orange spiced dressing
2 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
Half an orange, zested and juiced
½ tsp ground cumin
½ tsp ground coriander
½ tsp chilli powder
½ tsp fresh ginger, grated
Salt & pepper to taste
Method:
Heat a non-stick skillet on medium flame. Once the skillet is hot, add cooking oil.
Throw in the sliced carrots and paneer cubes. Fry until paneer is golden browned and carrots are cooked through – al dente.
Prepare dressing by adding all the ingredients in a bowl. Mix to combine.
Add pan roasted carrots and paneer with edamame in the bowl with dressing. Coat to combine.
Refrigerate for a few hours.
To plate, add salad greens, topped with marinated salad and a healthy dose of sprouts.
Grab a fork and dig in!
Once the food is prepared, styling is sketched and tripod is propped – get ready to shoot and don’t forget to have fun!
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UP Boards Topper Prachi Nigam was trolled on social media for her facial hair; our obsession with appearance is harsh on young minds.
Prachi Nigam’s photo has been doing the rounds on social media for the right reasons. Well, scratch that- I wish the above statement were true. This 15-year-old girl should ideally be revelling in her spectacular achievement of scoring a whopping 98.05% and topping her tenth-grade boards. But oddly enough, along with her marks, it’s something else that garners more attention – her facial hair.
While the trolls are driving themselves giddy by mocking this girl who hasn’t even completed her school yet, the ones who are taking her side are going one step ahead – they are sharing her photoshopped pictures, sans the facial hair, looking nothing less than a celebrity with captions saying – “Prachi Nigam, ten years later”.
Doctors have already diagnosed her with PCOD in their comments, based on photographic evidence. While we have names for people shamed for their weight – body shaming, for their skin colour- racism, for their age- age shaming, for being a female- sexism, this category of shaming where one faces criticism for their appearance has no name. With that, it also has zero shame attached to it.
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