I adore Heidi Swanson’s blog 101 Cookbooks & her cookbook “Super Natural Cooking”! Besides the amazing recipes, I love to browse at the page after page of vibrant food photos! She really has an eye for craft & color & knows how to capture the beauty of nature’s bounty. 

I’m still fairly new to blogging & photography, & while I’m getting “better” I am most certainly an amateur with soooo much room for improvement! As I am anticipating a bright, shiny, & new more “professional” camera under the tree this year, so I am trying to learn all I can to help me fine tune my food photog skills! I was so excited when my Mom told me that Heidi had a post on her blog regarding food photography! How did I not see this before???

Here are some great tips & pointers from Heidi: 

1. Always have a camera with you: This was a goal of mine this year. I always have one of my cameras on me so I don’t miss out on those serendipitous shots and encounters. 
2. Get a good lens: If you are going to invest in a digital SLR (as opposed to a point + shoot) don’t buy the “package” with the stock lens. Buy the body and then buy a faster lens separate. A faster standard lens will allow you to take great food shots when you are indoors or when less light is available.
3. ISO range: If you typically shoot at night, indoors, or in dimly lit environments consider the ISO range on the camera - the digital equivalent of film speed. 
4. Utilize all-natural (or available) light: I look for light that is soft, sometimes diffused with a thin curtain (which helps the window to act like a huge light box). I avoid direct light because it throws really harsh shadows across the food. No Flash. Ever. Unless you want your food to look sweaty and greasy - which can sometimes be cool/modern when you are talking about BBQ or something. But get the techniques down using natural light first, and then start breaking the rules.
5. Learn to color balance: A lot of the amateur food photography is plagued by an orange or blue cast that washes over the entire image. By learning how to adjust the color balance (either in the camera or in an image processing program) they can clear that problem right up. This is particularly a problem for people who shoot indoors under artificial lighting. See note about why I like natural light.
6. Composing shots: Don’t get hung up on the getting the quintessential “final shot”. There are all sorts of great detail shots that emerge throughout the cooking process - the environment, the raw ingredients, the chopping, the motion, the flames and all the action that comes into play in the second act, and THEN the final plated image itself.
7. Backgrounds: Some people get so focused on the item they are shooting, they forget about the visual “noise” going on in their backgrounds. Pay attention to backgrounds and clear out any elements you don’t want in the final shot.

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• food photography
• heidi swanson
• 101 cookbooks