If you’ve been following my blog you know I’m currently enrolled in a Social Fabric University class hosted by Sears to learn how to better photograph food. The first week I talked about what I hoped to learn in this class. The second week I shopped for a grill at Sears. The third week I actually bought my grill and brought it home. The fourth week was all about taking pictures of food while it was cooking on the grill.
This week, the fifth week, my assignment was to take pictures of grilled food using natural light and props. I was a lot more comfortable doing this week’s assignment because plating food for photos is something all of you have been seeing on my blog for months now. But I have learned more about using natural light and props to take a better photo.
The best place to take a photo in your house is near a window. Not a window that gets direct sunlight, as that will be too harsh in your photos, but one that the sun doesn’t shine directly into. At my house that’s a window in my bedroom. The window is on the side of the house and gets great indirect sunlight all day long. Which made it so much easier to take pictures.
Another thing you want to do when taking photos is to use props to make the photos more engaging. You’ll see that I’ve added some things in the photos below that you’d typically find around plates of food to make the pictures seem more natural.
I love saying that. Anyway, I wanted to make something simpler this week so a “grilled” grilled cheese. If you’ve never done this on the grill, make sure you turn the flames way, way down or you’ll get a extra well done sandwich. These tasted so much better than what you’d make in a pan. As this was my first photo of the week I totally flaked on using any props in the photo. But I also like the simplicity of it.
