Insta-masters in the culinary arts

April 24, 2015 Written by

I must say, I consider myself quite the food stylist. I am that annoying person that rearranges the table every time we go out for brunch. I have to ensure I have the right proportion of food to flowers – just so I can get the perfect snap of the flawlessly-poured tulip in my flat white. My friends sit and wait – “hurry up Beccy, I want to eat” – but for me, Instagram always comes first. In my world, we ‘gram then we eat.

Hello, my name is Beccy and I am an insta-food addict. I am forever on the search for a new café to visit or a new aesthetically-pleasing recipe to master. I follow hundreds of food bloggers, enamoured by their immaculate layouts of scrumptious meals. Instagram is my ultimate kitchen inspiration.

However, it seems I am not the only one – the rise of Instagram has seen the popularity of food photography skyrocket, with food-based accounts being some of the most popular profiles on the platform. In fact, the hashtag #food has been used over 166 million times (165 million of those probably by me…)

More and more we are seeing restaurants play up the trend, with intricate dollops of oil, light dustings of rose sugar… an edible flower anyone?! Everyone seems to be creating dishes that perhaps appeal more to our insta-pleasure than our taste buds.

But with the rise of Instagram as a marketing tool for restaurants, and of course our personal cooking prowess – this got me thinking, what makes a good Instagram food shot? Here are my top tips:

1. Take your snap from above. A bird’s eye view of a meal gives you better control of what’s featured your snap.
2. Allow space. Close up shots of food don’t usually show off culinary styling. I usually shy away from close ups, instead I capture the table setting around it. Cute cutlery and pretty decorations are made to be ‘grammed!
3. Think about the photos composition. I will always adjust the table before I take the shot, items such as paper napkins will be moved away, with things like vases of flowers moved into shot.

If you are after some foodie inspiration (and some exemplary insta-food styling snaps), these are my favourite food-based profiles at the moment: Food_Feels, Food Gays, Food Stories , Coco Health and Salt House.