When waiting for the lunch break at work, the last thing you want is for the pictures to make you hungry and push you to crave all the delicious meals and treats that you can see in delivery apps and café menus.
After having my appetite stirred more than once, I started reflecting on what exactly makes some of the photos so enticing and stomach growl-inducing. I can often spend hours browsing through different dishes simply because of how good the food looks.
Such photos have a lot of style and offer terrific layouts and lighting, making the food look finger-licking delicious. I often even save some particularly great photos for inspiration.
After collecting pictures proven to make you hungry for a while, I came up with a variety of food photography ideas that incorporate a variety of angles, color combos, and textures to guarantee eye-catching results.
I decided to share the results of my efforts by preparing this overview of appetizing photos that will make you instantly want to order every dish you lay your eyes upon.
While some images are incredibly appetizing, you can also find plenty of pictures to make you not hungry and just want to move on from them as soon as possible. Poor composition, bleak colors, weird textures, or just dishes that look like they’ve been out in the open for too long can ruin your appetite. Even good food loses its appeal if the photo isn’t taken professionally.
People also dislike food pictures that look unnatural, over-edited, or poorly laid out. A dry meat cut next to a blob of brown sauce, texture-less cheese, or an overloaded plate with no rhyme or reason behind the composition will ensure the viewer scrolls past it instantly.
Unclean utensils, busy backdrops, and an abundance of unnecessary elements can also create an unappealing sense of chaos and clutter.
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The same principles apply to videos, for instance, mukbangs. Even though part of the audience might like seeing a big meal being eaten, the rest can be put off by such excessiveness. If eating becomes a performance instead of a shared experience, it can make the viewer feel uncomfortable.
The main goal behind good food photography and videography is to stir the viewer’s appetite while enticing feelings of comfort and curiosity. However, if the photographer creates a feeling of disconnect or unease, the pictures will make you less hungry instead, which defeats the concept behind taking food photos.
Food pictures are a shining example of when bigger can actually be better. Triple-stacked sandwiches, obnoxiously large cake slices, and pistachio croissants are too big and delicious to ignore.
Each bite is a tantalizing treat while also posing a challenge. Plenty of restaurants cook large, attention-grabbing dishes by design, enticing content creators to visit, snap pictures, and post them online. It’s delicious, engaging, and terrific free advertising for the establishment.
Few photos can be as mouth-watering as the ones depicting various gourmet delicacies. From professionally seared steaks to freshly cooked pasta covered with parmesan, these dishes are bound to catch your attention. Seeing those makes you want to immediately book your next visit to your favorite restaurant.
Fresh, golden, and right-out-the-oven pastries are the perfect examples of pictures of food to make you hungry. They will entice you with their buttery layers, crisp crust, and puffy textures. Whether it’s a croissant or craft baguette, you can almost smell them through your screen.
All kinds of sweets can make you drool, whether it’s a glossy ganache, swirly whipped cream, or the rich texture of a chocolate brownie. A single glance and you already want to skip the main meal and go straight to dessert.
That’s why it’s important to do dessert photography properly – you need to convey the shine of the glaze, the intricate textures, and the sweetness of each creation with a masterful touch.
You need to start your day right, and what better way to do that than with syrup-covered pancakes, avocado toast, or crispy bacon with an omelet?
When photographed properly, each of these options is a visual delight that motivates you to get up early in the morning to enjoy a good breakfast and set a positive mood for the whole day.
Healthy food can look just as enticing as desserts or carb-loaded meals. Fill a bowl with colorful veggies or fresh fruits, and let the appeal of their natural textures shine. A good photo will help the viewer make the right choice for their health when browsing the delivery app next time.
Healthy, filling, and easy on the eyes – such meals are the ones you can confidently post on a food photography blog that values both flavor and aesthetics.
If you’re going to do something wrong, do it right. Melted cheese, glistening fries, and freshly-baked buns with a bunch of deliciousness inside – fast food meals can look incredibly tantalizing.
Vibrant colors and an abundance of ingredients are perfect for pictures that will make you hungry and forget about your diet, and have you smash the order button on your favorite fast food app.
When it comes to food on the internet, it doesn’t always have to taste or smell good to go viral. A single video or picture can prompt thousands of users to try a meal themselves.
People are willing to pay as much as needed if what they saw on social media caught their fancy. A popular example is the Dubai chocolate bar, which is regular chocolate in fancy packaging, but the way it breaks and melts on video is what gathered so much attention.
If the photographer didn’t pick the optimal angle and lighting, it would have just been ignored by most people. However, the way it was presented is what turns it into a unique experience that everyone wants to try.
That is the main drive behind contemporary food imagery. Content creators elevate regular dishes into something special. An appetizing picture, the correct angle, and some food photography techniques can make a simple snack seem tantalizing.
Food pictures can make you hungry even if you’ve never tasted that particular meal or ingredients yourself. Enticing visuals are more effective than ever and make us crave things we’ve never had before.
Even if the image we see on our phone or laptop looks tasty, that’s not always the case. Many of the meals we see in shows, ads, and food pictures on social media are entirely fake.
The juicy steak that made you drool might be made out of painted cardboard. An ice cream that preserves its integrity for hours is usually just colored mashed potatoes shaped to resemble dessert.
Food stylists employ tricky techniques to create fresh-looking dishes that can look irresistible for hours or even days. They replace whipped cream with shaving cream since the latter doesn’t melt. Pancakes are covered with motor oil rather than syrup since it won’t soak in, and the food can preserve its delicious look.
In a cereal commercial, they pour white glue instead of milk to ensure the flakes aren’t soggy. These innovative food photography tricks focus entirely on making the picture look good, even if it means making something inedible.
The key is to create an impression of freshness and deliciousness. While the photographer’s goal isn’t to lie to the viewer, it’s important to remember that not everything that looks yummy is always edible, even if a dish achieves its purpose of capturing your attention and making you want to taste it.
When you’re looking at burger and donut pictures on the web next time, pause for a moment to ask yourself. What if the meal that looks the best on my phone is one that no one will actually ever get to try since it doesn’t exist in the first place?
