Useful Tips on Food Styling + Mobile Photography

Side Story: (you may skip this and jump to the main story if you are pressed with time)

A couple of years ago, I got extremely addicted to taking photos that I mistakenly thought I wanted to be a professional in the field one day. I started of with a decent Sony cybershot point-and-shoot camera and later on, I decided to buy my first DLSR and additional lenses (macro and zoom lens to be exact) because at that point of time I was into shooting flowers and critters of all sorts too, apart from being obsessed with shooting sunsets and food.

Fast forward to today, I realized I am just a hobbyist or a photo enthusiast to be precise. Due to lack of time to concentrate on shooting on my favourite subjects and the difficulty of lugging around a heavy camera along with an active toddler, I slowly resorted to mobile photography. Oh how convenient it is to shoot from a very light electronic gadget and I have to commend Apple for coming up with iPhones with a camera that can produce very decent photos too!

Main Story:

My current favourite subject on mobile photography is styled food. If you follow me on Instagram, the following photos may look familiar to you.

You can see more of my styled photos here. I even came up with a post on how to improve your Instagram photos in 3 simple ways. I never claimed to be an expert though. Like I said earlier, I am just a photo enthusiast.

Imagine my delight when I was invited to attend the Food Styling + Mobile Photography Workshop organised by Bosch Home SG in collaboration with the Bloesem Team. It is no secret how my family recently enjoyed our cooking session with Bosch and for the longest time, I have been meaning to attend one of the Bloesem workshops in Singapore so I knew I had to grab the opportunity there and then!

Here are some of the useful tips and tricks I learned during the workshop which I applied right away during our allotted time to style food and shoot with our mobile phone camera:

• To get the best natural light possible, shoot between 10am to 12noon or 2pm to 5pm
• Give your subject some breathing space 

• Make use of the negative space to make your subject stand out
• Try not to use props unrelated to your subject

• Less is more
• Use tea towels as props

• Use herbs, spices or bread crumbs to add texture
• Buy different coloured boards with different textures and patterns to use as "table"

• Break the rule! Shoot from different angle and perspective
• Use your Instagram's editing tools and/or other apps to enhance your photos  

As you can tell from all the photos above, I had so much fun learning during the workshop. Thank you so much Bosch Home SG and Bloesem team for hosting the insightful workshop for us!