Food photography and product photography are all about techniques, creativity, and scenery. We may think at first sight that they are similar, but they have some differences. We are here to discover what they are.
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Specificities of food photography:
The first question you have to ask is, for what these photos will be used? When you have the answer, you already have a big base that you can develop during the shooting session.
For food photography, the highlight should always be the food which is the main piece of the composition.
The composition should help the viewer to taste the food with their eyes. It should visually awaken their appetite.
It may seem unreal, but it is the easiest way to describe what good food photography is.
To do that, you have to use a suitable plate, tablecloth, spoon, fork, or knife that helps the food to be attractive to the eye.
Food photography should result in something yummy, tasty, harmonious, and ordered.
The food’s color, taste, texture, and environment when it grows and uses should be reflected in your photo. You can achieve that by choosing what to add to your composition, where should you place this object and why? If you don’t ask these questions, your food photographs will just be common ones, with no feeling that emanates from them.
When your composition is ready and set, you can start to shoot the food, the plate, or the table. You will see here that you can play with angles to shoot the best side of the food, from the top, the side, and as macro photography, if you want more tiny and precise details.
There are plenty of options to shoot food and take the most of it. That’s the best part of it.
You should focus on the food, lighting setup, and composition. Your food photography will be breathtaking with the right harmony between those three elements.
Food photography is about making you feel emotions, and desire to eat. What will make the product photography different from it?
You should focus on the food, lighting setup, and composition. Your food photography will be magnified with the right harmony between these elements.
Food photography is about making you feel emotions, and your desire to eat. Product photography is a little bit different from it.
Specificities of product photography
Product photography is different from food photography. Most of the time the final result will be used in an e-commerce website or a shop, or as a product sheet or marketing-related support.
The purpose here is to make the product salable, creating the desire to purchase.
When it comes to absolutely creating this desire, the focus should always be the product to sell.
The composition should highlight its beauty, its benefits, and why it is better than any other products in the market.
To do that, you should play with light.
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By playing with light, I mean considering the material of the product, is it glass? paper or plastic? Does the light reflect on it? Is it translucent, or opaque? The light will just glow the product up and will make it pleasant, and gorgeous to the eye.
Product photography could also be
We can say that product photography is more technical and purpose-driven than food photography.
You can’t mess up with compositions, unlike food photography. The focus should always be on the product and only on it. The elements that you add to the scenery should drive the attention of the viewers to the main product.
Product photography that highlights something else except the product is a messed up one.
To avoid that:
- always focus your camera on the product.
- don’t add superfluous items
- only put the necessary objects in your composition
- play with light to enhance the beauty of the product
- play with movement effect if possible
- add a filter to make the colors pop
- change the angle of the light setup to add shadows
- retouch if necessary
- try a different point of view, lenses, flashes
- be creative