How to Capture “Moving Food” in Food Photography?

Have you ever surfed the internet and seen many beautiful photos of food with moving actions, such as pouring water, pouring sauce, sprinkling flour on cakes, etc?

You wonder how to take such photos, right?

It's great that I can share ways to take a food-moving photo in just a few simple steps. Let's learn about "Moving Food" in Food Photography in this blog.

Types of Moving Food Photography

From the step of preparing the ingredients to the final stage of completion, everyone sitting at the table and enjoying the dish, there are many movements for you to try to capture. In this article, Mosyne would like to introduce a few moments that can make viewers stop and watch.

The food brings warmth. Your dish looks much more attractive and hot.

Quickly pick up food from a hot plate of food.

Crispy fried chicken wings, which are accented with a line of sauce

Or simply the scene of you dipping in spicy sauce.

The highlight of these photos is the movement, the steam gently rising from the dish, the drops of sauce remaining on the meat, etc. All make your photo more vivid.

The scene of cutting and slicing the ingredients, the scene of seasoning the dish, especially the scene of the dish being put into the bowl. Will you sit at the table and enjoy it?

How to take “moving food” in Food Photography?

Now let's start with the questions: How to capture movement? What are the necessary steps?

Step 1. Prepare a tripod

The difference when taking pictures of food compared to many other types of photography is that the food always stands still. Unlike other types of photography, such as sports, life, animals, etc., they always move and are even affected by the weather (light, rain, wind, etc.).

Food is different, it always stands still, so you have enough time to arrange, edit, and move it as you want.

Therefore, a tripod is very important if you want the frame to be fixed.

Although you can still take dynamic photos without a tripod, it will be more difficult for you.

Step 2. Create a composition for the food photo

Choose a suitable location with enough light, such as next to a window to fix the camera to the tripod. If you have a flash, it's even better.

After fixing the camera to the tripod, fix the shooting angle with the pre-set photo background. The next thing to do is to move the photo accessories around to create the composition, then you can freely manipulate and create movements as you want.

Step 3. Set up the settings on the camera (or phone)

The first thing you need to do is understand the shooting parameters: Aperture, Speed, and ISO before starting to shoot. Understanding these 3 parameters will help the photo to be taken with the right light, not too bright or too dark. Once you understand, we will move on to the next step.

If you take photos with your phone, your device must have manual shooting mode to adjust the parameters.

Set shutter speed

Shutter speed determines the ability to capture the movement of the photo. The faster the speed, the more the camera will capture the object in a still state and with full detail when taking photos of moving objects. On the contrary, if the shutter speed is too slow, the captured object will be blurred.

So, it is important that the speed is at least 1/125 seconds.

After adjusting the speed, you adjust the remaining two parameters accordingly. ISO from 100 can be increased to 400 or 800. The aperture should be opened to the maximum according to your camera's parameters (f 1.8, f2.0, etc.)

When sprinkling flour, if the shutter speed is too slow, the flour particles will be blurred.

Set the focus point

The focus point should be set to manual focus for easy control.

Set the continuous shooting mode

You should choose the continuous shooting mode. Because, sometimes the moment only appears once, so take many continuous shots and then choose later.

Step 4. Proceed to Shoot “Moving Food” in Food Photography

Now let's start shooting... But wait... if you shoot, you need a model to manipulate, right?

In fact, you can still take photos and operate them yourself with the following 2 ways:

Using the timer mode: The simplest and least expensive way. After the camera is mounted on the tripod, just set the timer and run out to operate.
Using a remote: Wired or wireless remote are fine. If you have the conditions, it's also good to buy a remote, you can take photos far from the camera at the right time without having to waste time waiting for the time.

After setting the timer, quickly proceed, pour the sauce on the dish, and wait for the camera to take many continuous shots, make sure to wait for the right time.

Some notes when capturing Food photography

Notes when capturing movement in food photography:

Simple background, with contrast to the dish. Dark tones easily capture the steam escaping from the dish. However, light tones look closer and more natural.
Choose minimalist props with less elaborate patterns, or arrange them further away, more blurred in the photo, so that the highlight in the photo is always the movement. The more commonly used items such as chopsticks, spoons, knives, scissors, etc. the simpler the better.
You may do it over and over again to capture the desired moment, so you need to prepare more food than when taking still food photos.
Hot dishes are more difficult because when styling, you should pay attention to the steam they give off. Cold or chilled dishes will be simpler because you only need to focus on movement.
If you want to take pictures of liquid solutions, make sure it is thick enough, that is, not too thin or too thick. Because if it is too thick when poured on, the flow of the sauce will be interrupted when taking pictures. If it is too thin, the sauce will flow very quickly, and sometimes you won't be able to take pictures in time. So, if the sauce you pour on the salad is too thick, dilute it with a little water.

Conclusion

One day, suddenly you want to refresh your food photos, then "moving food" is a good suggestion you should try, it is so familiar that you forget.

And finally, read it over and over again if you have not mastered this knowledge. The most important thing is to practice a lot, from there you will have more knowledge and more interesting experience.

Good luck.

Hoàng Duyên