A few months ago, I had the opportunity to spend the day with Stacy Ventura, a professional food photographer with Edible Marin.

Here’s how to shoot food like a Pro:

• Make sure to use as much natural light as possible, such as bouncing light with reflectors and white boards.
• Shooting vertically is appealing for food photography, even though we are drawn to wide frame for video. The vertical framing emulates magazines, which have always been photo driven.
• Collect a variety of slates, wood panels, dishes, and accessories to build your food set.
• Play with the depth of field using food and accessories to create texture and draw your eye to what’s important in the shot.
• For photo editing in Photoshop, make sure to learn how to mask layers. This technique is valuable in combining multiple photos into a single image, and removing unwanted things from your photo.

Playing with food was fun and educational.

Written by Ariel Sultan