A big part of my travels and my blog is FOOD!! I absolutely love Indonesian food and if I knew I wouldn't come back a few kilos heavier, I would very happily eat all day in Bali. Trying new restaurants, new dishes as well as sticking to my old favourites is something I most look forward to when a holiday is approaching. I've learnt a few tricks to help my photos turn out the best way they can and I'm sharing them with you!!
- Presentation and background
The dishes in Bali are typically very nicely presented, but when you're taking a photo of the food, you're always going to get a shot of the things in the background too. Before the food arrives, I typically spend a few moments shuffling things around. I make sure my handbag is out of the way, I might put a couple of things within view like the serviettes and toothpicks or a candle that are usually always on the table in Balinese restaurants, like this shot I took of my dessert at the Pearl Restaurant.
- Light
Photos always turn out best in natural light, but I always find that restaurants in Bali are generally very dimly lit at night time. This frustrates me a lot, not just because it doesn't make for good photos but I don't like eating in the dark. To compensate for this, I either choose a table that is directly under a nice bright light, or I use a torch. Yes, a torch. I don't mean a huge, heavy, blinding one, but a nice small one that can very easily fit into my handbag with room to spare. Compare these photos for example.
The left photo is taken in natural light, the right is taken under artificial light (I chose the table because of the lighting). There isn't a huge difference in the photo quality. Compare the next 2 photos.
These photos were taken in dimly lit restaurants. You can see the photos are more grainy and just not as appealing. The photo on the left was taken using a torch shining down directly from above (also note how I've arranged the background), the right photo was taken relying only on the lights in the restaurant and the photo quality is very poor. This does of course depend on the camera you have as well. I was using my iPhone, which doesn't take great night time photos, but if you were to be using a big DSLR for example, you'd be able to adjust the settings to let in more light and get a better photo. My number 1 rule for taking food photos is DO NOT USE THE FLASH! It tends to really wash out the colours in the shot, leaving it look dull and unappealing.
- Angle
As you can see, I very rarely, if ever, take photos from directly above the dish. When you're seated at a table, that isn't how you see the food, so why take the photo from that angle? I like to take the photo right from the angle I am seeing it from as that is usually how it looks best and the food is presented with that in mind.
- Editing
I prefer to edit my photos as little as possible but in my opinion, photos never quite capture the colours and the appeal of the dish perfectly. When I edit my food photos, I generally stick to 3 things: brightness, saturation and focus. Brightness, I use as little as possible because using it too much can ruin the photo completely, but there are times that the light is causing an uneven shadow over the food that needs to be adjusted. Saturation, I also use only a little bit. Saturating the colour too much makes the photo look fake and simply over-edited. Focus is my favourite. In many photo editing apps, you can simply move, enlarge or decrease the size of the focus. As you can see in all of the above photos, I always place the focus directly on the food. It blurs the background and everything in it, making the food the hero and centre of attention. I never use filters when editing. A lot of editing apps are free and generally all do the same thing, but my favourite is Photo Editor by Axiem Systems. It comes in both a free version and a paid ($0.99) version.
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