5 tips to take good smartphone photos of food

Are you enjoying a nice meal and has the cook made the food as ‘Instagrammable’ as possible? Or are you proud that you made a delicious green smashed avocado toast at home with such a beautiful oozing poached egg? Even if you don’t share what you eat on social media every day, it can be fun to take good photos of food. If you don’t, even something very appetizing can look a bit unappealing. With these five tips you can take good smartphone photos of food.

Put the food in the middle

This tip actually applies to almost all photos you take, but we’ll mention it anyway: it’s best if you put the most important subject of your photo in the middle. You will notice that many smartphones also focus more on that themselves: the middle is a bit sharper than the rest with some smartphones. The middle simply catches your eye. Of course you can certainly be creative and put a number of macarons on a dish that are not photographed with one macaron in the middle, but food usually also applies: as much as possible in the center to attract the viewer’s eye even more .

Although there is a lot going on in this photo, the food in the center still draws attention.

Prick it in

Of course it is nice to photograph a plate of kale, but you can make it more exciting and interesting. While many people who like to photograph their food sigh and groan when they forgot to take a picture of their plate before a bite had been taken, that is actually not a must at all. Sticking a fork with a nice piece of (vegan) smoked sausage on it makes a kale photo come to life just a little more. Or a finger that dips a chip in the guacamole instead of just a plate of chips with some green gunk is also a lot more attractive. After all, people like to watch people and therefore prefer to see something that is ‘in motion’ rather than just remaining static.

Although the food in the background is very much blurred, it is often just more exciting with a human hand on it.

Think different angles

Instagram has made it very hip to take a photo from above. That often looks very nice. For example, try to photograph the entire table, perhaps including human hands passing plates or holding cutlery. You can take great pictures from above, but that’s certainly not all. Especially if you want something to look nicer instead of it being especially beautiful in terms of colors, then a photo from the side is often just a little better to make your followers mouth water.

Not every dish comes into its own from above.

Provide a nice format

It was also discussed in our podcast: don’t be afraid to stage and try to work with highs and lows. That goes beyond how you put the food on the plate: also check whether there is a plant in a strange place, or a half-empty glass of beer. Maybe there are still crumbs on the table from the sandwich beforehand: then you better clean up a bit first and think about what is visually nice to look at. It may be a bit strange in a restaurant to move things around, but it’s often best for the food photo if you create the best setting.

An example of how not to do it: too much clutter on the table and no attention at all for the subject: the scone.

Check if your phone has food mode

Samsung Galaxy S23 Ultra, for example, is equipped with it: a special mode that makes your food even tastier on the sensitive plate. What the mode seems to do is give the food some extra shine, while slightly blurring the background, which has a very appetizing effect. Check whether your phone also has a mode to take a picture of food. Sometimes it’s not a separate mode, but an algorithm recognizes what you’re trying to photograph and makes improvements based on that. Is it not present? Then the portrait mode can also do wonders.

You can see the phone here clearly focuses on the food and blurs the rest.

Smartphone photos of food

Watch a small excerpt from our podcast below, where we talk to the expert about photographing your food.

Or listen to the whole episode:

Now you know some food photography basics, but feel free to get creative. And do you just want your girlfriend in the picture taking a bite of a much too big hamburger, or that Brussels sprout that floats in the cheese fondue (including the perpetrator): do it nicely. After all, you don’t shoot for a cookbook, but mainly for the happy memories, right?

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Do you have any good tips for taking pictures of food? Leave it now in the comments.