Lighting, Styling and Composition: Producing the Eye-Pleasing Image

When pointing camera at either an object, friends or family, consider using these three main key factors: composition, lighting and styling. They can make your photography game up in a second.

Lighting

There are many of lighting sources for you to use from. If you can plan out the shoot a head of time, day light or sun light is always a good resource to take advantage of. However, if you know how to use a studio flash, they can bring out the best side of your objects. Avoid flat lighting and use white fill cards to bounce light into shadowy areas and smooth specular highlights.

Photo by me

Controlled lighting is everything to photographing a perfect picture. It’s always a good idea to avoid specular lighting which can produce harsh shadows and blown out highlights.

When lighting your set, try to move a light from above or behind, as well as in front of the subject. This will help create flat lighting and depth for the picture.

Photo by me

Styling and Shooting

When organizing the objects for your picture, it’s a good thing to keep in mind to be meticulous with the props you use. The surroundings, background should not be distracting the main stars. The main stars are the ones that will be highlight from the focal point of the image.

Photo by me

The most appealing and most used food advertising image is always clean and well-composed. When you choose to do food photography, make sure to pay close attention to your setup and choose clean, fresh and good looking piece. If you’re taking photos of food on a plate, don’t forget to clean up the chip crumps or chocolate syrup spots. It’s so much easier to wipe it than spending hours deleting them with photoshop.

Photo by me.

Pick Up the Right Gear

Lastly, be sure to pick up the right lens for your set that day. Shallow depth of field and tight composition work nicely for both food and nature shots. You can choose macro lens or crop frame cameras for small objects such as wedding rings or flowers. Alternately, a wide lens will be best for sharp focusing on the props and background.

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