Food Styling Tips: Know When to Stop

When it comes to styling and composition in food photography, setting up your scene can be a key factor for success. Because of that, you should be very careful when it comes to adding elements – sometimes, less is more. When you decide what you primarily want to show (most often it’s the main dish), you should start building around it.

Cutlery, napkins, spices and various seeds can contribute to the final shot. But if you add too many elements around, the viewers’ eye will no longer know where to go. The image becomes messy and cluttered with so many details that the final image no longer looks so good.

Build the composition around your main element

Choose the Right Plates and Props

When you are choosing plates for food photography, you should think about the type of food you’re photographing, and according to that pair the food with dishes and utensils. There is a variety of different plates and dishes you could choose for your food scene – round, rectangular, plain white, patterned, colorful and decorative.

For the most of the time, it’s better for your plates to be plain white or black (well, monochrome in general) because the bright colors and drawings on the plate can distract the viewer’s focus from the food itself. Sometimes, decorative plates can be great to add a bit of detail to plain, simple foods, but be careful with that. Always remember that food is the main subject.

Plates shouldn’t distract the eye off the main subject – food

How Professionals Do It?

Top food photographers know that styling and composition in food photography are essential if you want to create your own, unique look. Just take a look at some of the famous food photographers and you’ll see how they managed to stand out from the mass – Nadine Greeff with her predominantly dark images and mystic light, or Francesco Tonelli, with his dynamic food shots that capture motion.

Try to tell a story with your food photography accessories

Make Sure Your Food is Fresh

Don’t forget to check if the food you’re photographing is still fresh. Your main goal should be to depict food that is delicious and appealing to the eye. Sometimes, shooting could take up to 2 or 3 hours. No matter how good the styling of the food is, if, for example, the tomato you photograph starts to shrink and lose its shape, your image becomes useless for the commercial use.

Try to photograph the food while it’s still fresh

In the end, photography is a creative way to express yourself and there aren’t really rules and rights and wrongs. But with the proper styling and composition in food photography, you’ll see how your images start to become better, more professional and clean, how the food you’re photographing starts to be more appealing and presentable.

If you want to follow your progress and share photos with family and friends, SlickPic is a great platform to upload all your food photography albums and have them in one place.

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An accidentally double exposed film often brings interesting results

Process of Developing Photographic Film

Anyone who had ever been in a darkroom knows the unique feeling of creation and hectic anticipation when the image slowly appears on paper right in front of your eyes. The process of creating film photography and developing analog photos starts when a roll of film is loaded into your camera. When you start clicking, the shutter opens and the photographic film is now exposed to light for just a fragment of a second. The light interacts with the chemicals present in the layers of film and creates a record. Those ‘light records’ on film need to be developed in a photo lab in order to be printed later. Only after the various chemicals have been applied in the darkroom is it safe to expose the negatives to any other light. The light, which would have destroyed the film, now brings out its beauty in the final prints.

Even mistakes you make with analog camera are exciting

Analog Film Cameras: What Types are there?

In order to not get lost in technicalities and complexity of different types of analog film cameras, the only important thing to remember is that different cameras shoot different kinds of film. So, depending on the format of films used – whether it is 35mm, 110, 120, or Instant film, different types of film cameras exist. The most common size of film is 35mm, and most of the cameras use it. The 35mm film roll with its little holes along the each side is the image that comes to everybody’s mind when they think of film photography. The 120 film is used by medium-format cameras and it produces squared, high-quality images which can compete alongside some of the best digital cameras in terms of resolution. The 110 format film delivers small images and is used with pocket cameras. And lastly, Instant film format is characteristic as it delivers image prints instantly. This format was worshiped by Andy Warhol himself – he took hundreds of portraits with his Polaroid camera.

Be patient and pay attention to focus point

Film Photography for Beginners: Where to Start?

So, if you wonder what to buy, there really isn’t such thing as an exclusive, ‘must-have’ analog camera for beginners. The market of old cameras is huge – Leica, Nikon, Canon, Olympus, Pentax, Minolta… There are just too many brands and different cameras that bring characteristic feeling to an image. As a beginner, try to experiment and have fun with any type of camera that comes to your hands. This is where the magic of film photography lies – each film roll you shoot will be unique and it becomes a sort of a diary of your moments. Find and use films with expired date, as it usually brings interesting effects and different color hues. With each shot, your anticipation to see the final results will grow and soon, you’ll be enchanted by nostalgic, dream-like feeling of film photography.

Photographic film offers richer colors and more dramatic saturation

Nowadays, photo labs usually offer you to develop the film roll and digitally scan the images before you make a physical copy out of it. In such way, you can choose which film photos to print (if some of the images didn’t come out as you imagined) and spend less money. This option is suitable if you are a beginner because it allows you to experiment even more and not be afraid to make mistakes.

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The good design of an interior can be your huge advantage

Indoor Photography Lighting: Make Most Out of the Natural Light

As in any type of photography, lighting is a key to a good image. And in this case, best indoor photography lighting is surely natural light. There are many reasons that support this – natural light makes colors appear fresh and clean, shadows come from more natural and expected directions, and the space in general looks more relaxing and harmonious (and this is important when you photograph spaces meant for a living). It’s also good if you could plan your shooting in advance because you could see where the light will fall depending on the part of the day. Get familiar with the place you’re shooting, locate the position of the windows (whether they’re looking east or west), be patient and wait for that golden hour when the light is beautiful and shadows become interesting.

But because you’re not in control of the natural light, this can lead to a number of problems. For instance, you have an appointed shooting for a client on a specific day. But, alas, the weather that day turned against you – there is no sun, clouds are too heavy, or maybe the client was late and now the golden hour is gone. In such case, when photos have to be done on that day, you have two options – either you shoot with a slow, slow shutter speed with a tripod and enhance the image in post-production, or you bring all the studio lighting equipment you have and make the scene for yourself. This is actually not a rare case in professional interior photography – some photographers always bring strobes, soft boxes and other lights because they want to be in total control of lighting, just in case if there is some part of the interior where natural light can’t reach.

If you can, wait for that golden hour when natural light is at its best

Prepare the Scene before the Shooting

Sometimes you might walk into a great interior, but when you photograph it, it doesn’t look good. The reason behind this problem is that everything is visible and everything catches our eye when it is transposed to a photograph. This includes wrinkled linens, pillows and blankets, unnecessary cups and too many stuff on the table. In general – all the things that clutter a shot. Everything must be placed very intentionally or the flaws of the room become more obvious because our brain becomes a bit OCD when it comes to looking at the final shot. In order to overcome this, be sure to organize the space before the shoot, take some time to set the scene and get rid of all the things that might look a bit in disarray. This might take just a few minutes to do, and the improvement it brings is really great. By doing this, the viewer’s eye stays on the subject you want to show and doesn’t wander or get distracted by features that aren’t really adding anything to the final photo.

Another good thing you could do while preparing the interior is to add some of the elements that look good in the photo. For instance, if you photograph a kitchen interior, stop by to your local market and pick up some fresh, colorful fruits and vegetables. These elements can fill the space nicely and contribute to the final look of the image.

Get rid of all the unnecessary things that distract the viewer’s eye

Don’t forget the most important piece of advice – be creative, experiment, have fun, and be sure to check all the possibilities that SlickPic offers. SlickPic is a great tool to notice how your photography skills evolve through time – upload all the photos of your interior photography endeavors, follow our guidelines, and you’ll see the improvements in your skills.

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Get one step closer

“If your photos aren’t good enough, then you’re not close enough”, said Robert Capa, a famous war photographer and photojournalist. This can be applied to concert photography as well. Listen to his advice and get as close as you can to the stage. You may annoy a few people as you take a pilgrimage to the promised stage (or may I say land), but it’s worth it. Also, look at your DSLR as a passport to places ordinary audience can’t make it to – this includes stage stairs, balconies (if there are any), or even backstage, if you’re lucky enough to befriend a musician.

Try to get as close as you can to your subject

Seek those emotions

Music is all about the emotions, right? While taking concert photos, you’ve got a chance to permanently capture the emotions of everyone that is a participant in the show – from the singer, drummer and guitarist, to the girl in the crown just beside you. So, pay attention and be sure to follow the flow of the music, track the singer’s movements, wait for that insane riff or lyric that move people, and be there to capture the moment. Because it’s there only once, and then it’s gone. That’s certainly the main goal of concert photography – to capture the moment.

Be patient and wait for the right moment to capture the strong expression

May lights be your friend, not your foe

One of the trickiest things about shooting concert photography are lights – they vary from spectacular, ever-changing light show which allows you to be more creative, to modest lights which leave the musicians mostly in the dark. If the lights are dynamic and rich in color, play with them – find the angle that suits you the most, and wait for the moment when lights and musicians’ postures click and make a great composition. With the every next photo you take, you’ll see how the atmosphere changes with the lights, and thus, you’ll have a variety of different, interesting images.

In other cases of shooting concert photography, when lights are poor, one of the things that you could do is to focus on the details which could be shot without grain, on low ISO values, hunt the light and try to make the most out of your image, or secondly – not to worry about the sharpness of the image, bring your ISO to higher values and just search for the unique expressions of band’s members. It is also interesting to capture the musicians’ movements while they play – you can achieve that with lower shutter speeds.

Even in low-light settings, you can achieve great results

Include the audience in your live band photography

Gigs are all-around events – it’s not just about the music. So, be sure to include the venue, the atmosphere and the people attending (and I’m sure there are many interesting faces in the crowd around you, just look for them). In such way, you’ll cover a lot more of the event and be more satisfied with your final results, and your concert photography skills will reach another level.

People are an integral part of gigs and concerts – don’t forget to include them too

With all that said, I just have one last piece of advice to tell you, and it’s maybe the most important one – don’t forget to have fun. Live event photography and concert photography, in general, should transfer the excitement of live music. If you enjoyed the gig, it will be visible on your photos, I’m sure of that.

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