My Favorite Food and Drink Photos from 2021 and Why
While I wouldn’t necessarily refer to myself as a “food photographer” most days, I do end up shooting a lot of food “products” as a brand photographer, and I can’t say that I mind to be honest. As with all types of brand photography, I think the keys to successful food and drink photography are to have great natural lighting, and to keep the scene simple, making sure you keep the focus on the main food dish or drink vessel. Secondary to these big keys, is knowing the ins and outs of composition really well. In this post, I am going to share a few of my favorite food and drink images that I shot over the course of the last year and tell you a little bit about why I think these images work so well.
One of my first clients in the brand space was actually a local bakery and I still work with them today and so I think it’s appropriate for my first example to be from a shoot I created for them last summer. The bakery is called hello, cupcake and it’s the cutest local landmark here in Downtown Tacoma. Their tagline is simple, elegant, and delicious and so their brand imagery must reflect that.
The reason I love this image is two-fold. First, you have the stack of plates giving texture and drawing your eye to the main subject (the cupcake). Then you have the fresh ingredients which are carefully placed to further draw your eye into the center of the frame where the cupcake sits. In the composition world these are called leading lines. To top it all off and make the cupcake stand out even more, I used a wide (low number) f-stop to ensure that everything in the frame but the cupcake is slightly out of focus (It’s called “bokeh” if we’re getting technical here ;)
Next up I’m including this mini shoot of a whiskey bramble cocktail that I created with Whidbey Island Distillery’s blackberry liqueur, just for fun. I shot this photo on a backdrop on my covered porch last summer so the lighting was nice and bright, which is always a bonus for food and drink photography. What I want to point out in this photo is how I paired the linen/napkin color with the color of the drink to play off of each other and complement each other. Linens are a great way to incorporate a little more texture and color into your cocktail (and other food and drink) photos. Also, it never hurts to prop with fresh ingredients! Investing in a nice set of cocktail picks for fresh garnishes is a must if you are planning to style out some cocktail photos!
I could mention quite a few things regarding this photo. How the linen complements the brand colors for my client (Bliss Small Batch Creamery). How the props are all carefully placed on a diagonal leading your eye straight to the main bowl of ice cream. How nicely diffused the shadows are, etc…
BUT what I really want to point out, is that taking a bite out of something makes food photos so much more compelling! Why? Because it automatically puts the viewer in the photo. Can’t you just taste that brownie in your mouth already when you look at this photo? 🤤
So I’m challenging you to take your food photography to the next level and take a bite out of your subject or a prop the next time you’re creating a food scene!
Shooting for Empress Gin was such a treat! This beautiful gin gets its color from butterfly pea blossoms and it’s so fun to mix with because it changes colors depending on what you mix it with. It’s also super fun (and easy) to layer as I did in these photos. I love these cocktail images because they are just so bright and summery feeling. I achieved this bright feel by using my marble and white subway tile Replica Surfaces. These are hands down the best backdrops I’ve ever used and you’ll actually see them in almost every photo on this post. Not only do they wipe clean easily, but they also snap together to create a set without propping up the back or having an extra set of hands around.
The other thing that works nicely in these images (especially the top down photo) is the composition I created with the wooden tray, cocktail jigger, strawberries, and even the gin bottle playing roles in creating subtle triangles that draw your eye around the frame (and eventually back to the subject).
Last, but not least, how could I not include these delectable macarons from my shoot with Girl Loves Cake Desserts?! If I’m being completely honest, this shot uses more composition techniques than I even realized at first. I think my subconscious kicks in sometimes since I’ve been photographing things for so long 😅
So here’s the list. See if you can spot them all. Simplicity, Repetition, Rule of Thirds, and I can’t seem to put my finger on the technical term for “falling off the frame”...is it open composition? But mostly I just love the simple repetition of this photo and I want to recreate it with every similar subject that I photograph from now on! What about you?
There were so many other fun and delicious photos I got to create this year that I didn’t have time or space to share here but I hope these few help to inspire you to take on your food and drink photography with excitement in this coming year. Food and drinks can just be such fun and colorful subjects to photograph! Cheers to another year of creating beautiful images, friends 🥂