Choosing The Best Food Photography Backdrops For Your Shoot
July 16, 2021

Choosing The Best Food Photography Backdrops For Your Shoot

Photography has been an ongoing creative experience that’s been booming. People have been leaning on photographs in advertisements, promotion, identification, expression, fun, and many more purposes. It’s the unique and distinct creative expression people can show when they do photoshoots. Both photographers and the subjects can celebrate and emphasize their color and style.

Photography offers complete freedom of expression through the process of creating visuals. The procedure before coming up with the results is an expression, too, and how the shoot was done. In every photograph, a photographer always takes note of the background. The background is as necessary as the subject itself. This element can upgrade or throw the photo out the window, making it a crucial photography component. Now, food photography has been on the rise and go. Food photography backdrops are one of the vital things considered before proceeding.

A background in food photography adds up to the flavor and style of your shoot. Not only does it spice up the photos, but it also can ruin the whole shoot. Thus, one of the most important things to consider during a food photo shoot is selecting the background that can enhance the quality of your photos.

Food Photography Backdrops and Colors

Aside from lighting, the choice of colors for the food photography backdrops is essential. It should be something powerful enough to highlight the subject and put the images to the next level. On the other hand, it should also be just enough not to overpower the subject.

The background should be something that helps achieve what the team is going for. Most of the time, food enhances its vibrant image by putting on a suitable background for the subject. Usually, people choose desaturated and neutral colors to improve the subject's vibrance, color and make it look its freshest. Colors like greys, blacks, whites, and browns usually go well with bright and lively subjects, like greens, fruits, peppers, etc. Marble background has been popular with these and has gained positive attention because of its versatility.

However, neutral colors are not all that there is in the broad and long spectrum of colors. Those that aim for more contemporary and powerful images usually go for bright and vibrant colors like yellow, orange, pink, blue, and many more. However, the trick to achieving good images with bold backgrounds is to have both the background and subject perfectly complement each other.

It’s vital to mix the colors well and achieve your vision well with the colors you have chosen. It would be helpful to study the color wheel and photography; what works with what? As well as other helpful information to help you get more confident in choosing bright colors in achieving your contemporary images goal.

Cold Colors

The majority of food is warm in color. Not everything but most of the time, you see some reds, yellows, and oranges in food groups. Because of this, people mostly opt for colder colors as backgrounds like light blue, blue, and cyan. Cold colors are those that bring out the best of subjects that have warm colors in them. When the subject consists of warm colors or shades of red, using a warmer color highlights the subject very well.

Neutral Colors

As mentioned above, neutral colors are popular when it comes to food photography, white being the most used of them all. With these types of food photography backdrops, a photographer can incorporate various lighting styles and implement various possible lighting schemes to make the images pop and stand out. White can practically accommodate any subject because it is compatible with anything with the right choice of lighting. White is perfect when you want to take multiple photos with the same background as a concept. This is also good for images that go in menus.

Black and gray, on the other hand, are one of the classy colors out there. Like the color white, blacks and greys can also achieve elegance and sophistication. These color choices work well, especially if you are going for a darker concept of food photography. These colors help in bringing out the elegance and artistic touches of the subject. Matched with the proper lighting, usually quite dim, emphasis on shadows, and tweaking of colors, food images are transformed into something extraordinary and embody the artistic essence of food. On the other hand, grey can also be used in brighter sets as it is easy to alter and edit. Using a grey background makes it easier to insert preferred dominant colors from both warm and cold colors.

Warm Colors

Using warm colors as backdrops allows the photographer to capture the warmth in the food he is photographing. Traditional restaurants also have that friendly vibe going, so it’s also a good combination when shooting food for restaurants that want to exude warmth and tradition through their photos. These backgrounds are more challenging to manipulate.

The pictures tend to be overly yellow, creating an overwhelming effect that somehow is an eyesore. Despite the challenge, when a photographer uses the right and stimulating effects, the images will surely be good. Wooden props can help enhance the shots. Wooden boards as backdrops, varying from lighter to darker tones, are good to use with these types of shoots.

Everything Can Be Food Photography Backdrops

In a sense, you can use anything and everything as food photography backdrops. May it be your house wall, floors, papers of different textures, nets, hands, ingredients, pieces of wood, etc. Anything works as long as it achieves the critical rule of food photography,

“Bring out and show the soul of the food.” It has to be something that helps photographers accomplish the goal and concept they want. More importantly, it should emphasize the subject and bring out the best of it. When choosing food photography backdrops, considering the colors is of great importance. It’s helpful to remember that the set, precisely the backdrop, can make or break the images. Researching, experimenting, learning about them would greatly help in bringing out the best of the photos.

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