Basics of Food Photography | Tutorial 4 is for beginners looking to learn to create great looking images for their social media feed.
Learn from this series on my YouTube channel or read more about them as tutorial 1, tutorial 2, tutorial 3, tutorial 5.
After earlier videos on food photography where we discussed composing an image, creating bokeh and depth of field and understanding direction of light, in today’s tutorial we will learn about the angles to shoot you food from.
Depending on the Hero dish, one should choose the angle. Just like Direction of Light, there are 4 main angles to work on – 90 degree or a Bird’s Eye View, 40-45 degree, 10-15 degree and 0-5 degree angle with respect to the dish being shot and position of camera being held. If the dish is considered to be a point, then camera position can be defined in angle it is making with the subject.
90 degree Angle – Is most commonly used for Dishes which look best when viewed from top. Usually these subjects don’t have height to show off. Some examples would be pizza, tart, flat salad like the Beetroot one which we showcase in video.
45 degree Angle – This is the angle at which we see food. It is the most exploited angle because it is easiest to shoot. One doesn’t need to move to shoot food from this angle. You can bring out your smart phone and go click happy at this angle. However, this angle doesn’t always flatter the subject well. A pizza shot from this angle will only show some crust and little topping. The beauty of the whole pizza wouldn’t come across.
15 degree Angle – This works for subject when there is a height to show-off or even if there is a flattering background to picture. At the same time it becomes imperative to remove all clutter from the background here as it would be there in the frame.
0 degree Angle – This is when you place the camera of your smartphone parallel to the dish. This works superbly well when the subject has a height. In the Insanity Slice Cake shown in video, there are 7 layers making this cake, so it is important to put across those 7 layers for the viewer. This angle works beautifully. In this also one needs to be careful about the background.
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