Working in the world of product photography, you get the opportunity to work on a range of products, brands and sectors. It may be clothing photography one week, or food photography the next and today we are going to highlight some fantastic tricks for getting stunning food and drink product photographs.

Colourful Images

It may seem obvious but sometimes we can focus too much on creating a style or brand image and forget about colour. Product photography is all about showing off the product and converting customers through engagement. With food and drink photography, the more colourful and vibrant the image, then the more interest you will get from customers. Think about what colour combinations work, how they map to the brand and the props involved in the shot.

Use Props

Just like clothing photography or jewellery photography, it is a great idea to use props with food and drink because it can help tell a story. These props help create a unique style for your product, such as adding kitchen accessories or baking ingredients to a photograph of cookies or bread. Have fun and play around with ideas and simply see what works well. The most important point to note here is that it must not distract the customer from your product but instead, it should enhance their experience.

Have fun

One of the best parts about working with food and drink product photography is the potential to get involved and have some fun. You aren’t restricted by specific shots or props in the same way you might be with other types of products so play around with it and think outside of the box. Maybe you want to try to motion shots, get kids involved and photograph their natural reactions. There is freedom here to play around until you find unusual ideas that make your images stand out from the crowd.

Use a food stylist

It may add extra cost to the photography project but a food stylist is an important part of the process. In the same way as using a makeup artist or hairstylist for models in clothing photography, a food stylist will know how to combine colours, textures and products. Making your products look as professional as possible, will help the customer imagine being sat in a restaurant enjoying the food or drink.

Fresh food

A really important trick to be aware of and one that some forget about. Whilst you could use one of the many hacks or tricks to make older food look good on screen, you cannot compete with freshly cooked or prepared food. If it is fresh then it will look more vibrant, healthy and enticing for the customer when they see the image. Furthermore, it may have natural features such as steam or bubbles that mean you don’t need to manually create these effects or add them in editing.

Discover tricks and ideas

There are countless food and drink photography hacks out there including using everyday items such as cotton balls, glue, syringes and toothpicks. These all may seem very random choices but each has a particular use in the creation of stunning food and drink product photographs. So get exploring today and add to your food photography bag of tricks.