Why Food Photography?
For many of us, food is more than just a source of nutrition. Food is also a form of communication. We all have memories that involve food or meals that we remember. Each of us has at least one memorable experience with food, and many of us associate certain dishes with specific family members or vivid memories. Seeing photos of our favorite childhood dishes can transport us back in time as easily as seeing the food itself. We eat to survive, but we also eat to celebrate good things or share our sadness, so food is an integral part of our lives.
People take photos of what they eat not only for themselves, but also to share with others. Great food photos evoke memories and tell stories. A great meal is prepared to be savored in the moment, but a great food photo can add a whole different element to the experience, turning this fleeting experience into a timeless memory that you can enjoy over and over again by sharing its image.
One of the first examples of food photography - a carefully arranged photograph of peaches and pineapples inspired by still life paintings of the period - was made by William Henry Fox Talbot in the 1840s, when the first daguerreotype was produced (by exposing copper plates made light-sensitive with silver nitrate for 10 to 20 minutes in a camera obscura, exposing them to mercury). method of obtaining photographic images by subjecting them to steam and developing them) was taken shortly after its emergence. In those days, food photography was heavily influenced by still life paintings. In the 19th century, food photography was viewed with an artistic perception. In the early 20th century, innovators such as Paul Strand began to move away from traditional still lifes. Strand took visual cues from Modernist painters of the time, including Paul Cézanne, Henri Matisse, and Pablo Picasso.
If we fast forward to the mid-1930s and the arrival of color advertising; food has become a sales tool rather than just an art form. Following this, cookbooks introduced people cooking at home to technical photography, encouraging them to focus not just on taste but also visual appeal. The brightly colored, glamorous Thanksgiving-themed photographs taken by Hungarian-born photographer Nickolas Muray for McCall, a popular women's magazine, in 1943 are the best examples of this. The style Nickolas worked in used hairspray or even varnish to preserve the appearance of foods under the harsh, direct lighting required to achieve vibrant colors. Beer suds would be replaced by soap suds, and glue would replace milk. And of course, none of it was edible. I would definitely like to leave without mentioning that the hard and direct light trend has made a very strong comeback in recent years, especially in the editorial field.
Until the 1990s, there was no major change in commercial food photography for both magazines and cookbooks. Naturalistic, documentary styles began to replace the theatrical and flashy shooting venues of previous years. Food started to look edible again. With the rise of the internet, we were introduced to food blogs and then Instagram, which changed our entire world. In parallel with these developments, the development of the food and beverage industry and the culture of eating out, and moreover, its visualization with increasing competition, increased the interest in food and beverage culture and food photography. New restaurants and cafes open almost every day, which means that competition between them is increasing. In today's world where borders have disappeared and languages are insufficient to attract new visitors, simply writing the names of the dishes on the restaurant's website or menu would not be enough.
A photograph of a dish on a menu that reflects the style of that place and at the same time arouses appetite and determines whether the customer wants to try the meal. It is very important for most people to see the photos on the menu to make it easier for them to choose. This can be supported by the fact that 82% of people will buy a meal because it looks good in the picture even when they don't actually want to eat it. That's why experienced business owners often choose to work with professional food photographers
For the same reason that in today's food world, recipe books are akin to recipe photo books, the rise of Netflix and celebrity chefs dominate our social media news feeds and timelines. It may seem like we've reached its peak, but the 2.1 million photos uploaded to Instagram are just a reflection of two centuries of our interest in food.
While I was previously a photographer who only shot travel and portraits, today I became a food photographer by being influenced by all these trends. At first, I was just shooting food presentations that I prepared at home as a hobby, but then I started cooking just to take photos, and eventually I found myself taking professional shots for restaurants. Like many other professional food photographers, I started organizing workshops and sharing my knowledge with those who wanted to learn. One of the most frequently complained issues in the workshops I attended as an instructor was the lack of Turkish resources in the field of food photography. Based on this, I decided to prepare this blog in order to use it as a guidebook in my trainings and to convey what I know to people who cannot attend these workshops or cannot access sufficient resources due to the language barrier.
Good news; You don't have to have a professional camera to take beautiful food photos. With developing technology, our smartphones have reached a level where they can shoot as well as many cameras. Although shots taken with a mobile phone are insufficient for commercial photography, they will be very useful for your social media posts. Therefore, you will be able to apply almost everything you read about food photography in this book while shooting with your mobile device. (If you are considering food photography as a profession or if you want to shoot as well as professionals, I would like to say that yes, you should definitely get a professional camera.)
In this blog, I will first give you basic photography information. (I would like to point out that you will be able to use a lot of the information you will learn in the blog not only when shooting food, but also in all kinds of shootings, from product to portrait.) Then, you will learn how to use light, create special composition for food photography and improve your photographs with styling techniques, and finally how to improve your photographs with mobile versions and many professional food photographers. I will explain how you can edit it with Adobe Lighroom, which is your first choice, by explaining the functions of each panel and giving examples.
If you're ready, let's get started!
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