Guest Post: Food Photography Tips

{I asked the talented Janis from Pine Cone Camp to share a few tips on food photography. Janis is an incredible photographer from Vancouver who I met a couple of months ago through the online world - enjoy! ps. These tips will sure be handy for my upcoming dessert recipe swap!}


Hello everyone! Lovely Renee has asked me if I would give a little how-to for shooting food. I’m a professional photographer and shoot all kinds of things, but I adore shooting food. I do a weekly series called “Baked On Monday”, at Pine Cone Camp, so I’ll show you how I approach the photography portion for these posts. It’s a paired down version of a real food shoot. Here we go!





I have heaps of props as I use them all the time at Pine Cone Camp, as well as shoots for magazines. Take a look at what you have that you could use in your food shoots. Dollar stores are great for these things. I keep a cupboard of all sorts of props, from fabric to mini paper parasols to an assortment of paper for back drops.



When I’m shooting food, I always use a low depth of field. I’m sure many of you know what this is, and I don’t want to get overly technical, so I’ll just say if your camera has the capability, open up your aperture to something like 2 or 2.8. Choose your focal point and click! You’ll notice that one of my bears is nice and sharp, and his friends are a little blurred out. By the way, I did not bake these guys - they’re from Shoppers Drug Mart!

Depending on the natural light available, I will often use one of my reflectors. Now you don’t need one of these (they’re not cheap!), but they are necessary for the magazine and catalogue shoots I do. For small food set-ups, you can also use good old fashioned aluminum foil or a baking sheet. They work perfectly well, and you probably already have them around if you’re into cooking and baking. Oh, you'll notice that I propped up the bear cookies with mini marshmallows. I've used them often along with chickpeas and tape for helping things "stand".