For the past 12 weeks I’ve been taking a photo course at RISD; our final presentations are on Monday and to say I’ve learned a lot would be an understatement.

The class itself is a black and white film course. I thought there was no way the skills used in film photography could carry over to what I like to do in digital. I couldn’t have been more wrong. I know so much more about how to set up a shot, how my digital camera works, and even how to edit photos on a computer because of the work we did with film. The two pretty much go hand in hand and I feel like I take stronger photos because of it. 

Here are the 9 most valuable tips I’ve learned from the past semester; I’d suggest that you don’t just read them, but take them in, grab a camera, and practice. The best thing you can do to strengthen your photos is get hands on experience, and no amount of reading can match that.

Check the light meter

That little thing in the bottom of your viewfinder actually turns out to be incredibly helpful. Before I was shooting in manual but always looking at the screen to see how I needed to adjust the shutter speed. That meant having a lot of shots that were horribly, horribly exposed. Using the light meter has cut down on bad shots tremendously.

Food photos in general look better overexposed by a stop I think but with a properly exposed file there’s nothing you can’t do in a digital editing software.

Pay attention to lighting

Lighting is pretty much everything in a photo. The best way to practice finding good lighting isn’t taking pictures at all; just simply observe the light in a space at different times during the day to see how it changes and how the shadows make things look. Lighting really is essential to taking a good photo so figure that out before anything else.

Also, avoid flash whenever possible. It just makes people’s skin look like reflective vests and that’s never attractive.

Crank down the ISO

I was always shooting in 1600 ISO because I thought that was “good enough”, but after working with photos in 400 ISO the quality isn’t even comparable. ISO measures the amount of detail in a photo, the lower the ISO meaning the more detail. Setting your ISO to 400 means you’ll have to use a slower shutter speed, but for well-lit shots like outdoor photos on a sunny day there’s no reason not to use it.

The whole frame matters

It’s easy to get caught up in a subject and start taking pictures not paying attention with what’s around it. The problem is other people will pay attention to it when they look at the photos. If it’s not meant to be part of the photo, it probably is just a distraction and shouldn’t be there. You could crop it out during editing, but it’s so much easier to pay attention to the whole frame when you’re shooting than manipulating things after the fact.

Tripods are your friend

I got a tripod for Christmas this past December. I hardly used it at all until a few weeks ago, and now I can’t stop. It’s just so much better for when you want to take low ISO photos and the lighting isn’t that great. It doesn’t have all the mobility of using your hands, but if you’re savvy you can get some pretty great shots. I’ll definitely be using mine most of the time when I’m taking food photos from now on.

“Stealing” is fine

Stealing a recipe from one website and posting it on another is bad. Stealing a car is worse. But “stealing” a photo is fine—or rather, the concept of the photo. Stealing in art just means seeing something that someone else did well and that you like and trying to recreate it yourself. So if you have a particular favorite photographer who does great work, why not try to make your photos look just like theirs? As long as you’re the one taking the photo, it’s not breaking any rules.

Prints are never out of fashion

With everything being digital today, no one has prints of their photos anymore. They’re a lot of fun to keep around, put on display, or even give as gifts. Get your favorite digital photos printed once and a while and do something fun with them; otherwise they only live on your computer and where’s the fun in that?

Find your style and stick to it

Everyone has a different style. Even after 12 weeks of class with people I never knew before, it’s easy to tell who took what photos based on the subject matter and style. Likewise, I can spot a lot of my favorite food bloggers just by how their photos look because they’ve stuck with one style and gotten really good with it. It’s great to try new things but start with a strong foundation by working on your own look.

Get feedback

Of course you should always please yourself with your work, but sometimes we get too attached to make objective decisions; that’s when having people who are going to tell you the truth is most important. Don’t go asking your mom or best friend who’s never said a mean thing in her life how your photos are—find someone unbiased who knows a thing or two about photos and ask what you could do to improve. Most of the time, we aren’t our best critic. In the words of Tina Fey, “If you’re ever feeling too good about yourself, there’s this thing called the internet.”

I hate Daylight Savings Time. Hate it. I don’t care about that extra hour of sleep I got; it’s not worth the trade-off of it becoming dark outside by 5pm. That is a nightmare for a food blogger.

Something I haven’t talked about much is how frustrated I’ve been with my photography over the past 2 months. A dorm room—as you can imagine—has very limited space and this makes setting up elaborate scenes difficult. After 8 weeks of trial and error(and error and error), I think I’m just now starting to pick up the tricks of how to work with limited light and limited space.

My usual set up is to put a flat, textured surface on top of a storage bin set up in front of the window with a neutral background behind propped up with a chair to reflect the light. Once I have that set up, I start adding plates of food and other props around it to make it look like a more permanent tablescape.

I think one of the most important things is knowing when the light is “good” in a room. This is just something you have to observe about the space over time. For me it seems like there are a few hours in the morning and a few in the early afternoon when the most light comes through the window, so I try to arrange taking photographs around those times.

When everything else has come together, all that’s left is to find the right angles and start shooting. I’m a big fan of the take-many-photos-and-hope-one-isn’t-blurry method. A tripod to hold the camera, lengthen the exposure, and allow for more detailed, lightened photographs would be a good investment; but it’s one that I haven’t made yet.

The latest thing I’ve done to improve is switch from a white to a light grey background. The problem with white is that it’s often too bright and makes the rest of the image look dull in comparison. Depending on how the camera’s white balance is set, it might throw off the colors of the objects in the photo, too.

White balance is something I admit that I understand very little of; but certainly it’s one of those things that you notice in a photo when it’s well done and notice when it’s not. I’m looking forward to trying more with grey backgrounds with a grey posterboard I just bought(much better than an inside-out shirt).

Another option I’ve used is my homemade light box, which is good because it allows me to take photos at any time no matter how light it is outside. However, I’m not a huge fan of using it because I think it ends up looking too artificial and overexposed and the only way to change that is by making another larger light box. That being said, this is the first photo I’ve had accepted onto Tastespotting and Foodgawker in months so I shouldn’t knock it too hard.

Why all this about photography? Fore one, it’s probably the part of food blogging that comes least naturally to me. I feel very confident cooking for any number of people under whatever conditions and being able to make something satisfying. But photography takes work. Another reason is that I just found out I’ll be taking a photography course at the Rhode Island School of Design next semester. While the thought of being graded on something so far removed from my studies makes me a little nervous, I know in the end I’ll gain a lot from the experience and hope that shows through on the blog.

Have we all seen the show Toddlers and Tiaras?

*pauses*

If not, you’re missing out on one of the finer parts of life, like fireworks on the 4th of July and jumping into a pile of leaves in Fall. More importantly, you’re missing out on this simile:

Food photography is like Toddlers and Tiaras. You spend so much time building up something you love, dressing it with all the bells and whistles, giving it a touch of digitalized make-up and send it off to the judges. When you’re photo wins grand supreme(or just gets posted along with all the other grand supremes on food sites like Foodgawker and Tastespotting), you’re elated for it. But when it doesn’t, it’s crushing. Like a pageant mother wearing way too much sparkly make-up, you feel like you were rejected right along with the photo.

So what’s a pageant mother—I mean, food blogger—to do? Take the words of the judges and use them to make your next performance stronger. Most food sites will give constructive criticism which can be broken down to fix minute(or big) mistakes.

Composition:

Chocolate Peanut Butter Bars, rejected by Tastespotting

This is perhaps the most annoyingly subjective criteria on which food sites judge food photos. What it boils down to is whether they like the picture or not: Are there extra things in the background that are distracting? Do the elements make sense? Does the food look presentable? What’s good composition to one person might seem poor to another.

Raspberry Tofu Mousse, rejected by Tastespotting

There’s absolutely no way to fix composition after the photo’s been taken unless you want to try and submit another day and hope they change their mind. Generally good composition should have the food be the star of the photo without other distracting elements. Tastespotting is even stricter about this insisting no hands or teeth marks. The bottom line is that it’s subjective and rather than catering to critics you should take and submit a photo that you enjoy and hope that the food sites enjoy them, too.

Harsh Lighting/Overexposure:

Gluten-Free Pancakes, rejected by Foodgawker

Just like it sounds, harsh lighting refers to the amount and intensity of brightness in a photograph. Too bright a photo can distract from the colors and contrast. Luckily, this is easy to fix by adjusting the brightness, contrast, shadows and highlights of a picture.

Low Lighting/Underexposure:

High-Protein Mock Thai, rejected by Foodgawker and Tastespotting

Low lighting can equally ruin a photo like harsh lighting in not letting all of the content be seen. Again, this one is easy to fix by adjusting brightness, contrast, shadows and highlights. It’s also important to make sure there isn’t too much black or dark brown present in the photo to begin with since this can easily overwhelm the food.

White Balance:

Gluten-Free Whoopie Pies, rejected by Foodgawker and Tastespotting

The white balance of a photo affects the colors and tones by designating the contrast between colors and “true white”. Most cameras automatically adjust the white balance but it can be specified for different lights. Unfortunately the white balance of a photo cannot be fixed on a computer unless you shoot and edit RAW files.

Dull/Unsharp:

Tofu Ricotta, rejected by Foodgawker and Tastespotting

Dull/Unsharp images are usually a result from the camera focusing on the wrong part of the picture. It could also happen if a photos quality is drastically reduced. While most photo editing programs have a “sharpen” option, the result is usually poor and grainy. The best practice for sharp photos is making sure the camera is focused.

Does It Really Matter?

Peanut Butter Magic Shell, rejected by Foodgawker and Tastespotting

I attended a food blogging conference 2 weeks ago called Techmunch where one of the panels talked about improving food photography. Inevitably the conversation moved towards Foodgawker and Tastespotting and general grievances about being rejected. Brian gave a helpful reminder that, no matter what the critic thinks, no rejection defines you or your photos. You can still totally love a photo or photo set that gets rejected; one person’s opinion doesn’t make them good or not, so worry less what the critics have to say and take photos to please yourself.