Food photos on a restaurant site, menu or social feed do one job: they show the dish as it arrives at the table. Three things decide whether they work: light, composition and editing.
Use natural light
Light matters more than the camera. Daylight from a window brings out the colour and texture of food better than anything else. Shoot near a window and turn off harsh overhead lights.
Composition and styling
You are not just photographing a dish, you are building a frame. Three things to work with:
- The rule of thirds. Place the dish off-centre rather than dead in the middle of the shot.
- Props that fit the food. Plates, cutlery and linen that match the dish, not props that compete with it.
- Texture and colour. A garnish adds freshness, and a background with some depth stops the shot looking flat.
Edit lightly
Editing is the last step, and less is more. Adjust brightness, contrast and saturation to bring out what is already in the photo. If the result looks better than the food does in real life, you have gone too far.
If you run a restaurant and want the photos to earn their keep, put them on a site that takes orders. A restaurant online ordering plugin such as FoodMaster (formerly WooFood) is a WooCommerce food ordering solution that shows your images next to the ordering flow, so a guest can see the dish and order it in the same place.
Then keep shooting. Change one thing per shoot, a different window, a different angle, a different garnish, and compare the results.