Food Photography: Part Eight -Food Styling

Food styling is easily the most challenging aspect of food photography.  Harmony and balance are the key principles of design. Using these two principles, you can improve the composition of the scene and make decisions like where to place certain props and what color to use.

There should be certain kind of balance in arrangement of the dishes so that it does not weigh heavily one side, and the colors should be in harmony, with focus mainly on the subject.

Garnishing is the easiest way to style the food and different garnishes can be used to enhance the plate, like chopped nuts or seeds, creams, shredded cheese, herbs or spices. It should balance with the dish and be used in limited proportion.           

We can store the collection of different tools that are used in styling. Getting acquainted with the tools and practicing how to use these tool becomes very important.

Essential tools for food styling are things like tweezers, cotton swabs, brushes, squeeze bottles, paper towels, tooth picks, scissors, cutlery board, straws, twines and many other things. Normally, I take whatever is handy and in my vision. But for this exercise, I opened the kitchen cabinets and found quite a collection....

There are many images on the net from where one can draw inspiration. The most useful images can be found on Pinterest.

I wanted to click the pictures of puffs and  saw many pictures on Pinterest. that inspired me to pick up the puffs from my cabinets and go click, click , click....

Studying, deconstructing and analysing the photographs of professionals can make us understand how food styling has been done.

PS: Thanks to Neel for his guidance in his30-day food photography Workshop.