Everybody loves a good food (if not recipe) post. With the tag #dailyfoodphotography trending, no wonder many would stand up on tables and chairs to take stunning flatlays, so they'd get to join contests that ultimately reward with them with some SBDs, aside from jumping on the food-whoring bandwagon.
Small money is also good money better than none. After all, don't we all eat every day? Wouldn't hurt just spending an extra minute or two to click their seconds away for a relished photo.
While you're at it, why not create a post that detailed the whole process of snapping great food pictures. When you're feeling more adventurous, consider documenting your recipe.
Coupled with attractive, decorated end-product and step-by-step process on how to whip out delicious food, you stand a chance of getting noticed not only by the curators but your avid followers as well.
What's cooking? The Dos and Don'ts
Do's: Entice your readers with great visuals
The Oomph Factor:
When shooting for food videography, bear in mind of the lighting, angle, and positioning of the product. Whether you're into flat-lays or green screens, the star of the show is always your food and food you shall focus.
Don'ts: Leave the juicy bits out
The Yikes Factor:
If videography is not your strong arm in content creation, don't force it. Sure, with ample of practice and patience you'll get to mastery. Though in the process of churning out great content for consumption, you might want to take it easy and go with a 'simpler' option of photo-taking, which might or might not be your talent but at least it's not as time-consuming as video editing. Should you decide that you want to produce videos instead, include a description at least in your post so your readers will know what to expect. For a kickstart, why not tease your readers with snapshots and previews. Which brings me to my next point if you find video making too tedious for your liking…
Do's: Experiment with different angles, colors, and themes
The Oomph Factor:
When capturing the perfect angle of a granola-filled bowl, be sure to do it exceptionally well. If it helps to prepare for the shooting day, decide on your desired theme, completing the theme with color palettes and inspired images. To envision the right feel for your pictures, Pinterest is undoubtedly useful when comes to serving that purpose. Don't worry about being a copycat. You're not copying if you're coming up with a better version of the artwork. Copying is only scorned upon, only if you produce the exact work and pass it off as your own.
Don'ts: Kill your readers with sloppy images
The Yikes Factor:
Poorly formatted or the author is just plain lazy and couldn't be bothered to proof-check his/her post. Makes my eyes bleed and I was hoping that the Tom yam's spiciness would do the honour of pricking my sight instead.
Do's: Format a clean-cut process
The Oomph Factor:
What do you expect from a recipe post? Without a doubt, its the step-by-step process. A detailed, concise documentary will definitely get your readers to resteem and bookmark your post. Show them how it's done. At least your readers can tell the difference between a soggy dough and a risen one.
PS: Not every reader cooks or bakes. The master key (point) to unlocking an exceptional food or recipe content is to assume that your readers are not cooks and bakers. That's why they're drawn to your post anyway. If they don't, it also means that you're not catering to that target market of readers. Just like how some people would love reading autobiographies, while others might shun away and would rather choose a fiction.
Don'ts: Leave a distasteful 'essay' as a recipe post
The Yikes Factor:
Lazy content without formatting puts us off. Really, do you want to be reading an essay when cooking? Number your steps; at least you won't be torturing your readers and they won't need to scroll up to check and see if s/he should poach, sear, and blanch that Halibut.
Why this even matters?
The only thing that should be cooking in your pot is your ingredients, not blood-shot-eyes or fried-brain after going through sloppy, lazy contents. For more foodie-loving posts, check these Steemians out.
Handpicked, and curated as my favs, they made it to the list because these Steemians make you want to lick your screen — right now [1, 2, 3, 4]
✩
PPS: This post is my third instalment of my previous two. If you have missed them, check them out now.
Howto Series | #1 — What makes a photography post irresistible
Howto Series | #2 — What makes a scientific post stimulating
Image credit: All public domain images are taken from Pexels unless stated otherwise.
I still have my portfolio and personal sites— virtuallydebbie.com and debbieang.com.
But these sites will eventually redirect you to my Steemit blog.
Well, what can I say. If it’s good stuff, you can’t get enough of it :)
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Oh my gosh this is SO helpful! Absolutely excellent content, lady! I'm resteeming!
Thanks dear @yasminep. Always so supportive. Catch you up in London xxx
Useful article. In fact foodphotography is not as simple as it seems at first glance. Even photo professionals agree that sometimes the difficult task is to make the food appetizing in the photo. Many delicious dishes do not look cool in the photo. Therefore, the light and camera settings, composition and props play a big role when shooting food. Thank you for mentioning my work, I'm flattered.
Thanks for dropping a message @anna-mi. I've always admired your work and it's definitely worth a mention :) BTW, if you don't mind sharing, where do you usually find inspiration? Your pics are gorgeous 😍
Thank you very much, I am very pleased! I just love taking pictures. I've been dreaming about the camera for so long that now I enjoy creating each frame. And especially nice to do this when the recipe was a success and the food turned out delicious. I myself do different backgrounds for my photos, I come up with a composition, looking for the right props. I like to go shopping in search of beautiful dishes and various cute little things that can decorate my photo. The secret of inspiration is that I love this hobby of mine! That if you do something with pleasure, the result will be visible.
Great post, very informative with great tips! Wish I read something like this when I was just starting out. Resteemed
Oh and thanks for including me in the post :)
But you're already so talented even without this post to begin with @nina.ser :) Looking forward to more goodness from you <3
Aww thank you for your sweet words ♥︎
You have been upvoted by the @sndbox-alpha! Our curation team is currently formed by @jeffbernst, @bitrocker2020, @jrswab & @teachblogger . We are seeking posts of the highest quality and we deem your endeavour as one of them. If you want to get to know more, feel free to check our blog.
Thanks @sndbox-alpha :)
Really, really helpful! Thank you for writing this. We don't really want to produce posts which make you want to poke your eyes out! Or, leave you bleeding lol!
LOL @birdsinparadise yeap, you get it there ;p
Do I have to cook the food to join in the contest?
Not if you wanna, but I knew of some contest which kinda require you to 'produce' an edible food, aside from displaying 'em ;) @ronyxoxo
Awesome tips, I love to watch cooking shows and blogs even though I don't cook as much, I agree with your points. visual representation in food blogs cannot be overstated.
@abmakko I love cooking shows too esp the Travel Living Channel (TLC) during the good old days (when I was younger, not that I'm super old now) ;p They always impress me with great showmanship, skills, and technicality. Guess it works one way or the other on screen and also off screen. ;)
Thanks for sharing this. I’ve bookmarked it for a next recipe when Spring will be back in Oz my garden back to life.