I have always admired food photographers. Food photography is something that I haven’t been able to master. I decided to make a goal sheet of things I would like to accomplish by the end of this year and on that list is to improve my ability to take pictures of food. Lucky for me… my mother has started her catering business (cateringbyeida.com) and because of this I have pretty food to photograph (:

My favorite thing to take pictures of has always been flowers. Anything that involves plants has always been natural for me to photograph. I don’t have to think twice or overanalyze the situation. I think that mainly I feel that they’re so beautiful already that they speak for themselves and all I have to do is take a picture to share it with the world. This is the opposite of how I feel about food photography. I always hesitate and I feel incompetent.

Portable Bruschetta. It’s portable because it’s on a cool-looking wooden spoon, ready for take off.

On Friday, my mother catered for a wrap party and I had the opportunity to take pictures of the food to put on her website. I was very nervous because there were time constraints (people would arrive soon and start consuming), limited lighting available, and there was a lot of food to photograph.

While taking pictures of the food, I was starting to build up anxiety from the stress. Nothing I was shooting came out how I wanted it to. Somehow during that chaos, it clicked in my brain. I don’t know what ‘it’ is, but it happened. I felt like I was taking pictures of flowers instead. I tried imagining that I was in a garden and if these plates of food were actually flowers, how would I photograph them?

I think that what is most important is remembering to give the food personality. Even though it’s an inanimate object (a yummy inanimate object), it deserves attention and should be photographed in that fashion. I’ve found that there is beauty in food and the way it is presented and it is a food photographer’s job to portray that. It’s difficult to make food look delicious through a picture. I hope to work on this over the course of the rest of the year and improve one step at a time.

Overall I am proud of the work that I did. I am going to be posting more pictures of food and the dishes from the wrap party as time progresses. Does anyone have any food photography tips? How do you feel about taking pictures of food?

^_~