With so much food photography on social media, chefs need to figure out how to make their work stand out among the rest. Food photographer Sam Wells has worked with many chefs over the years and has seen a wide range of plating styles, but some photos stand out to him more than others. Here is a photo shot for Puesto with Chef Katy Smith that stood out to him among everything else he has photographed. Here is a breakdown of why he thinks it worked so well.
1. Contrast: The natural contrast of the black bean puree with the black tacos against the white marble makes the food stand out without the photographer needing to add excessive contrast to the image in post production. The white cheese even contrasts against the dark tacos and puree. The speckles of crumbled chorizo add another textural layer that pull the eye toward the tacos.
2. Neutral background: Having a neutral background of white, grey, or black helps the food stand out because the color of the background doesn’t compete with the food. Most of my images now are shot on neutral surfaces and dishware because of this reason. I’ll only shoot on color if it makes sense with the food or the plate.
3. Composition: Ditching the plate allowed more freedom in composition by allowing Katy to do an epic sauce drizzle. Sam composed the image diagonally so that the viewers eye travels in from each corner toward the tacos. You want to lead the eye through the image toward a focal point that makes sense. Don’t have lines pointing out of the frame or else the eye will travel out of the image.
4: Rule of Thirds: The rule of thirds is crucial in photography and is the first thing you learn in photography school. If you split the frame of the photo, plate or surface into thirds, and put important things on the lines of the thirds or where they intersect you will have a much stronger composition. Chef Katy used the rule of thirds by putting the tacos a third of the way through the puree. If she had put these dead center on the puree, this image would have not been nearly as powerful. This allowed the photographer to make a composition in camera that included the whole puree drizzle while still keeping the tacos on the third line of the frame. This double rule of thirds was crucial to the success of this image.
